y. f) e jfetubcnts' Literal translations 



THE 

HISTORY OF ROME 

BY 

TITUS LIVIUS 
Books XXI "and XXI i 

Literally Translated, With Notes 
By 

D. SPILLAN, A.M., M. D. and CYRUS EDMONDS 



With a Brief Introduction By 
JAMES KENDRICK, A. B. 




Translation Publishing Company, inc. 

76 Fifth Avenue New York 



Copyright, 1922 

BY 

Translation Publishing Company, inc. 



OCT 21 *22 



C1A683820 



INTRODUCTION 



Livy is not remembered for any military victories' 
such as Caesar, nor for his oratory like Cicero, but 
because of his famous Roman History to which he 
devoted a lifetime. 

Titus Livius (to give him his Latin cognomen) was 
born in 59 B. C, in that city which is now known as 
Padua. Even in those days Padua, or Patavium as 
it was then called, was of great importance, ranking 
third in the Empire. 

Little is known of Livy's parentage except that he 
was of noble birth and born in comparative luxury. 
After his studies of rhetoric and philosophy, as was 
befitting his rank, he moved to Rome where he soon 
became a favorite of the Emperor Augustus. At this 
time there flourished in the court a brilliant literary 
circle that has since become famous. 

At about the age of thirty-three (26 B. C.) Livy 
began his famous work of writing a history of Rome. 
For over forty years, until his death in 17 A. D., he 
toiled upon this mammoth task which was so univer- 
sally appreciated and admired that he soon came to be 
recognized as one of the most brilliant men of his day. 

The history originally consisted of 142 books be- 
ginning with the foundation of the city of Rome (as 
was the custom among preceding historians) and 
carrying the events down through the ages to the 
death of Drusus in 9 B. C. Doubtless if Livy had 
lived longer, he would have continued this work 
through 150 volumes to the death of the Emperor 
Augustus. 

Although Livy wrote 142 books, only 35 have sur- 
vived, namely, Books 1 to 10 and 21 to 45. All the 



iv 



INTRODUCTION 



rest have perished from sight although students and 
explorers have held out hopes of their discovery 
throughout the ages and searched everywhere, but in 
vain. There are other books to day (such as the 
Periochae) which give us a brief but uninteresting 
summary of practically all the original volumes of 
Livy's work. Of the volumes now available, Books 
21 and 22 are generally considered the best from the 
standpoint both of subject matter and rhetorical ex- 
cellency. 

Writing history in those days was very different 
from writing history to-day. The true facts were in- 
deed difficult to obtain and, in fact, were not con- 
sidered as important as they are nowadays. The 
modern histories of H. G. Wells and Hendrick Van 
Loon have been criticized for their historical inexact- 
ness even though these brilliant men have had access 
to all the scholarly discoveries and studies of past 
historians. How much more difficult, then, was it 
for Livy to eliminate all errors from his history? 

In those days there were but few records to guide 
the ambitious chronicler. Rome had passed through 
her most heroic period teeming with glory and power 
but with no one to write of her deeds of greatness. 
And now that these times had passed and Rome was 
backsliding rather than progressing, Livy took up his 
pen to encourage the Romans to maintain the glory 
and power that was slipping out of their grasp. He 
did not moralize but rather sought to fulfill his pur- 
pose by picturing the manly virtues of the former 
Romans who had exalted the republic and conquered 
the known world. 

The chief sources for the student of history in the 
time of Livy were but few. There were the Annales 
Maximi — a brief statement or history of current 
events kept by the Pontifex Maximus. Then there 
were certain official documents, and important treat- 
ies written on a kind of linen cloth and Qther material. 
In addition, there were certain epic poems dealing 
with historical subjects written about 200 B. C, by 
Naevius, Ennius and others. After the historical 



INTRODUCTION 



poetry came prose annals or mere statements of the 
events of the year written in chronological order. 
Probably the most famous of the Annalists were Q. 
Fabius Pictor, L. Coelius Antipater, Polybius and 
Valerius Antias. 

Livy has been criticized in the past for confining 
himself to the narration of events without enlarging 
upon the philosophy of history and telling us more 
about the customs, manners and civilization of the 
various peoples and periods. Let us lay the blame 
for these failings to the style of his day rather than 
to any propensity on his part to be careless or inac- 
curate. 

But regardless of the slight inaccuracies of histor- 
ical events, the reason we read Livy is because his 
accounts are always interesting. The ideas are clear- 
ly expressed in short sentences. His style is simple. 
We are interested in the thought content rather than 
any complications of the language. His ideas are 
not puerile for his keen sense of the dramatic, his un- 
derstanding of human weakness, and his portrayal of 
detail fills his descriptions with a charm and interest 
that is seldom found elsewhere in Latin prose* 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



BOOK XXI. 

Origin of the second Panic war. Hannibal's character. In violation 
of a treaty, he passes the Ibems. Besieges Saguntum, and at length 
takes it. The Romans send ambassadors to Carthage ; declare war. 
Hannibal crosses the Pyrenees: makes his way through Gaul; then 
crosses the Alps ; defeats the Romans at the Ticinus. The Romans 
again defeated at the Trebia. Cneius Cornelius Scipio defeats the 
Carthaginians in Spain, and takes Ilanno, their general, prisoner. 

1. I may be permitted to premise at this division of my 
work, what most historians 1 have professed at the begin- 
ning of their whole undertaking ; that I am about to relate 
the most memorable of all wars that were ever waged : 
the war which the Carthaginians, under the conduct of 
Hannibal, maintained with the Roman people. For never 
did any states and nations more efficient in their resources 
engage in contest, nor had they themselves at any other 
period so great a degree of power and energy. They' 
brought into action, too, no arts of war unknown to each 
other, but those which had been tried in the first Punic 
war ; ar\d so various was the fortune of the conflict, and so 
doubtful the victory, that they who conquered were more 
exposed to danger. The hatred with which they fought 
also was almost greater than their resources ; the Romans 
being indignant that the conquered aggressively took up 
arms against their victors; the Carthaginians, because 
they considered that in their subjection it had been lorded 
over them with haughtiness and avarice. There is besides 
a story, that Hannibal, when about nine years old, while 
1 Thucydides seems to be specially referred to. 



8 THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chat. 2. 

he boyishly coaxed his father Hamilcar that he might be 
taken to Spain (at the time when the African war was 
completed, and he was employed in sacrificing previously 
to transporting his army thither), was conducted to the 
altar, and, having laid his hand on the offerings, was bound 
by an oath to prove himself, as soon as he could, an enemy 
to the Roman people. The loss of Sicily and Sardinia 
grieved the high spirit of Hamilcar : for he deemed that 
Sicily had been given up through a premature despair of 
their affairs, and that Sardinia, during the disturbances in 
Africa, had been treacherously taken by the Romans, 
while, in addition, the payment of a tribute had been im- 
posed. 

2. Being disturbed with these anxieties, he so conducted 
himself for five years in the African war, which com- 
menced shortly after the peace with Rome, and then 
through nine years employed in augmenting the Carthagin- 
ian empire in Spain, that it was obvious that he was revolv- 
ing in his mind a greater war than he was then engaged 
in ; and that if he had lived longer, the Carthaginians under 
Hamilcar would have carried the war into Italy, which, un- 
der the command of Hannibal, they afterwards did. The 
timely death of Hamilcar and the youth of Hannibal occa- 
sioned its delay. Hasdrnbal, intervening between the fa- 
ther and the son, held the command for about eight years. 
He was first endeared to Hamilcar, as they say, on account 
of his youthful beauty, and then adopted by him, when ad- 
vanced in age, as his son-in-law, on account of his eminent 
abilities ; and, because he was his son-in-law, he obtained 
the supreme authority, against the wishes of the nobles, by 
the influence of the Barcine faction, 1 which was very pow- 
erful with the military and the populace. Prosecuting 
his designs rather by stratagem than force, by entertaining 
the princes, and by means of the friendship of their lead- 
ers gaining the favor of unknown nations, he aggrandized 
the Carthaginian power more than by arms and battles. 
Yet peace proved no greater security to himself. A bar- 
barian, in resentment of his master's having been put to 

1 The Barcine faction derived its name from Hamilcar, who was sur- 
named Barca. Hanno appears to have been at the head of the opposite 
party. 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



0 



death by him, publicly murdered him ; and, having been 
seized by the by-standers, he exhibited the same counte- 
nance as if he had escaped ; nay, even when he was lacer- 
ated by tortures, he preserved such an expression of face 
that he presented the appearance of one who smiled, his 
joy getting the better of his pains. With this Hasdrubal, 
because he possessed such wonderful skill in gaining over 
the nations and adding them to his empire, the Roman 
people had renewed the treaty, 1 on the terms that the 
River Iberus should be the boundary of both empires, and 
that to the Saguntines, who lay between the territories of 
the two states, their liberty should be preserved. 

3. There was no doubt that in appointing a successor 
to Hasdrubal. the approbation of the commons would fol- 
low the military prerogative, by which the young Hanni- 
bal had been immediately carried to the praetorium, and 
hailed as general, amidst the loud shouts and acquiescence 
of all. Hasdrubal had sent for him by letter when scarce 
yet arrived at manhood ; and the matter had even been dis- 
cussed in the Senate, the Barcine faction using all their 
efforts that Hannibal might be trained to military service 
and succeed to his father's command. Hanno, the leader 
of the opposite faction, said, <; Hasdrubal seems indeed to 
ask what is reasonable, but I, nevertheless, do not think his 
request ought to be granted." When he had attracted to 
himself the'attention of all, through surprise at this ambig- 
uous opinion, he proceeded : " Hasdrubal thinks that the 
flower of youth which he gave to the enjoyment of Han- 
nibal's father may justly be expected by himself in return 
from the son : but it would little become us to accustom 
our youth, in place of a military education, to the lustful 
ambition of the generals. Are we afraid that the son of 
Hamilcar should be too late in seeing the immoderate 
power and splendor of his father's sovereignty ? or that 

1 A.U.C. 52G, thirteen years after the conclusion of the first Punic 
war, being the sixth treaty between the Carthaginians and Romans. 
The first was a commercial agreement made during the first consulate, 
in the year that the Tarquins were expelled from Rome ; but it is not 
mentioned by Lhy. The second is noted by him, lib. vii. 27; and the 
third, lib. ix. 43. The fourth was concluded during the war with Pyr- 
rhus and the Tarentines, Polyb. V. iii. 25 ; and the fifth was the memo- 
rable treaty at the close of the first war. 



10 



THE HISTOKY OF HOME. [b. xxi., chap. 4. 



we shall not soon enough become slaves to the son of him 
to whose son-in-law our armies were bequeathed as an 
hereditary right ? I am of opinion that this youth should 
be kept at home, and taught, under the restraint of the 
laws and the authority of magistrates, to live on an equal 
footing with the rest of the citizens, lest at some time or 
other this small fire should kindle a vast conflagration." 

4. A few, and nearly every one of the highest merit, con- 
curred with Hanno ; but, as usually happens, the more nu- 
merous party prevailed over the better. Hannibal, having 
been sent into Spain, from his very first arrival drew the 
eyes of the whole army upon him. The veteran soldiers 
imagined that Hamilcar, in his youth, was restored to 
them ; they remarked the same vigor in his looks and ani- 
mation in his eye, the same features and expression of 
countenance ; and then, in a short time, he took care that 
his father should be of the least powerful consideration in 
conciliating their esteem. There never was n, genius more 
fitted for the two most opposite duties of obeying and 
commanding ; so that you could not easily decide whether 
he were dearer to the general or the army : and neither 
did Hasdrubal prefer giving the command to any other, 
when any thing was to be done with courage and activity ; 
nor did the soldiers feel more confidence and boldness un- 
der any other leader. His fearlessness in encountering 
dangers, and his prudence when in the midst of them, 
were extreme. His body could not be exhausted, nor his 
mind subdued, by any toil. He could alike endure either 
heat or cold. The quantity of his food and drink was de- 
termined by the wants of nature, and not by pleasure. 
The seasons of his sleeping and waking were distinguished 
neither by day nor night. The time that remained after 
the transaction of business was given to repose ; but that 
repose was neither invited by a soft bed nor by quiet. 
Many have seen him, wrapped in a military cloak, lying on 
the ground amid the watches and outposts of the soldiers. 
His dress was not at all superior to that of his equals : his 
arms and his horses were conspicuous. He was at once 
by far the first of the cavalry and infantry ; and, foremost 
to advance to the charge, was last to leave the engage- 
ment. Excessive vices counterbalanced these high virtues 



THE HISTORY OF ROME, 



11 



of the hero; inhuman cruelty, more than Punic perfidy, no 
truth, no reverence for things sacred, no fear of the gods, 
no respect, for oaths, no sense of religion. With a charac- 
ter thus made up of virtue and vices, he served for three 
years under the command of Hasdrubal, without neglecting 
any thing which ought to be done or seen by one who was 
to become a great general. 

5. But from the day on which he was declared general, 
as if Italy had been decreed to him as his province, and the 
war with Rome committed to him, thinking there should 
be no delay, lest, while he procrastinated, some unexpected 
accident might defeat him, as had happened to his father, 
Hamilcar, and afterwards to Hasdrubal, he resolved to 
make war on the Saguntiues. As there could be no doubt 
that by attacking them the Romans would be excited to 
arms, he first led. his army into the territory of the Olcades, 
a people beyond the Iberus, rather within the boundaries 
than under the dominion of the Carthaginians, so that he 
might not seem to have had the Saguntines for his object, 
but to have been drawn on to the war by the course of 
events ; after the adjoining nations had been subdued, and 
by the p. )gressive annexation of conquered territory. He 
storms and plunders Carteia, a wealthy city, the capital of 
that nation ; at which the smaller states, being dismayed, 
submitted to his commands and to the imposition of a trib- 
ute. His army, triumphant and enriched with booty, was 
led into winter-quarters to New Carthage. Having there 
confirmed the attachment of all his countrymen and allies 
by a liberal division of the plunder, and by faithfully dis- 
charging the arrears of pay, the war was extended, in the 
beginning of spring, to the Vaccaei. The cities Hermandi- 
ca and Arbocala were taken by storm. Arbocala was de- 
fended for a long time by the valor and number of its in- 
habitants. Those who escaped from Hermandica joining 
themselves to the exiles of the Olcades, a nation subdued 
the preceding summer, excite the Carpetani to arms ; and 
having attacked Hannibal near the river Tagus, on his re- 
turn from the Vaccsei, they threw into disorder his army 
encumbered with spoil. Hannibal avoided an engage- 
ment, and having pitched his camp on the bank, as soon as 
quiet and silence prevailed among the enemy, forded the 



12 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chap. 6. 



river ; and having removed his rampart so far that the en- 
emy might have room to pass over, resolved to attack them 
in their passage. He commanded the cavalry to charge as 
soon as they should see them advanced into the water. 
He drew up the line of his infantry on the bank with 
forty elephants in front. The Carpetani, with the addi- 
tion of the Olcades and Vaccaei, amounted to a hundred 
thousand, an invincible army, were the fight to take place 
in the open plain. Being therefore both naturally fero- 
cious and confiding in their numbers; and since they be- 
lieved that the enemy had retired through fear, thinking 
that victory was only delayed by the intervention of the 
river, they raised a shout, and in every direction, without 
the command of any one, da^h into the stream, each where 
it was nearest to him. At the same time, a heavy force of 
cavalry poured into the river fr m its opposite bank, and 
the engagement commenced in Jie middle of the channel 
on very unequal terms ; for there the foot-soldier, having 
no secure footing, and scarcely trusting to the fdrd, could 
be borne down even by an unarmed horseman, by the mere 
shock of his horse urged at random ; while the horseman, 
with the command of his body and his weapons, his horse 
moving steadily even through the middle of the eddies, 
could maintain the fight either at close quarters or at a dis- 
tance. A great number were swallowed up by the cur- 
rent ; some, being carried by the whirlpools of the stream 
to the side of the enemy, were trodden down by the ele- 
phants ; and while the last, for whom it was more safe to 
retreat to their own bank, were collecting together after 
their various alarms, Hannibal, before they could regain 
courage after such excessive consternation, having entered 
the river with his army in a close square, forced them to 
fly from the bank. Having then laid waste their territory, 
he received the submission of the Carpetani also within a 
few days. And now all the country beyond the Iberus, 
excepting that of the Saguntines, was under the power of 
the Carthaginians. 

6. As yet there was no war with the Saguntines, but al- 
ready, in order to a war, the seeds of dissension were sown 
between them and their neighbors, particularly the Turde- 
tani, with whom when the same person sided who had 



t.e. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



13 



originated the quarrel, and it was evident, not that a trial 
of the question of right, but violence, was his object, am- 
bassadors were sent by the Saguntines to Rome to implore 
assistance in the war which now evidently threatened them. 
The consuls then at Rome were Publius Cornelius Scipio 
and Tiberius Sempronius Longus, who, after the ambassa- 
dors were introduced into the Senate, having made a mo- 
tion on the state of public affairs, it was resolved that en- 
voys should be sent into Spain to inspect the circumstances 
of the allies ; and if they saw good reason, both to warn 
Hannibal that he should refrain from the Saguntines, the 
allies of the Roman people, and to pass over into Africa to 
Carthage, and report the complaints of the allies of the 
Roman people. This embassy having- been decreed but 
not yet dispatched, the news arrived, more quickly than 
any one expected, that Saguntum was besieged. The busi- 
ness was then referred anew to the Senate. And some, 
decreeing Spain and xAirica as provinces for the consuls, 
thought the war should be maintained both by sea and 
land, while others wished to direct the whole hostilities 
against Spain and Hannibal. There were others again 
who thought that an affair of such importance should not 
be entered on rashly ; and that the return of the ambassa- 
dors from Spain ought to be awaited. This opinion, which 
seemed the safest, prevailed ; and Publius Valerius Flac- 
cus, and Quintus Boebius Tamphilus. were; on that account, 
the more quickly dispatched as ambassadors to Hannibal 
at Saguntum.. and from thence to Carthage, if he did not 
desist from the, war, to demand the general himself in 
atonement for the violation of the treaty. 

7. While the Romans thus prepare and deliberate, Sagun- 
tum was already besieged with the utmost vigor. That 
city, situated about a mile from the sea, was by far the 
most opulent beyond the Iberus. Its inhabitants are said 
to have been sprung from the island Zacynthus, and some 
of the Rutulian race from Ardea to have been also mixed 
with them ; but they had risen in a short time to great 
wealth, either by their gains from the sea or the land, or 
by the increase of their numbers, or the integrity of their 
principles, by which they maintained their faith with their 
allies, even to their own destruction. Hannibal having en- 



14 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chap. 8. 



tered their territory with a hostile army, and laid waste 
the country in every direction, attacks the city in three 
different quarters.^ 7 There was an angle of the wall sloping 
down into a more level and open valley than the other space 
around ; against this he resolved to move the vineae, by 
means of which the battering-ram might be brought up to 
the wall. But though the ground at a distance from the 
wall was sufficiently level for working the vinere, yet their 
undertakings by no means favorably succeeded, when they 
came to effect their object. Both a huge tower overlook- 
ed it,, and the wall, as in a suspected place, was raised high- 
er than in any other part ; and a chosen band of youths 
presented a more vigorous resistance, where the greatest 
danger and labor were indicated. At first* they repelled 
the enemy with missile weapons, and suffered no place to 
be sufficiently secure for those engaged in the works ; af- 
terwards, not only did they brandish their weapons in de- 
fense of the walls and tow r er, but they had courage to make 
sallies on the posts and works of the enemy ; in which 
tumultuary engagements scarcely more Saguntines than 
Carthaginians were slain. But when Hannibal himself, 
while he too incautiously approached the wall, fell severely 
wounded in the thigh by a javelin, such flight and dismay 
spread around, that the works and vinese had nearly been 
abandoned. 

8. For a few days after, while the general's wound was 
being cured, there was rather a blockade than a siege : 
during which time, though there was a respite from fight- 
ing, yet there was no intermission in the preparation of 
works and fortifications. Hostilities, therefore, broke out 
afresh with greater fury, and in more places, in some even 
where the ground scarcely admitted of the works, the 
vinece began to be moved forward, and the battering-ram 
to be advanced to the walls. The Carthaginian abounded 
in the numbers of his troops ; for there is sufficient reason 
to believe that he had as many as a hundred and fifty 
thousand in arms. The townsmen began to be embarrass- 
ed, by having their attention multifariously divided, in or- 
der to maintain their several defenses, and look to every 
thing ; nor were they equal to the task, for the walls were 
now battered by the rams, and many parts of them were 



y.r. 534.] 



TIIE HISTORY OF ROME. 



15 



shattered. One part by continuous ruins left the city ex- 
posed ; three successive towers and all the wall between 
them had fallen down with an immense crash, and the 
Carthaginians believed the town taken by that breach ; 
through which, as if the wall had alike protected both, 
there was a rush from each side to the battle. There was 
nothing resembling the disorderly fighting which, in the 
storming of towns, is wont to be engaged in, on the oppor- 
tunities of either party; but regular lines, as in an open 
plain, stood arrayed between the ruins of the walls and 
the buildings of the city, which lay but a slight distance 
from the walls. On the one side hope, on the other de- 
spair, inflamed their courage ; the Carthaginian believing 
that, if a little additional effort were used, the city was his ; 
the Sagnntines opposing their bodies in defense of their 
native city deprived of its wails, and not a man retiring a 
step, lest he might admit the enemy into the place he de- 
serted. The more keenly and closely, therefore, they 
fought on both sides, the more, on that account, were 
wounded, no weapon falling without effect amidst their 
arms and persons. There was used by the Sagnntines a 
missile weapon, called falarica, with the shaft of fir, and 
round in ether parts except towards the point, whence the 
iron projected: this part, which was square, as in the pi- 
lum, they bound around with tow, and besmeared with 
pitch. It had an iron head three feet in length, so that it 
could pierce through the body with the armor. But what 
caused the greatest fear v/as, that this weapon,, even though 
it stuck in the shield and did not penetrate into the body, 
when it was discharged with the middle part on fire, and 
bore along a much greater flame, produced by the mere 
motion, obliged the armor to be thrown down, and exposed 
the soldier to succeeding blows. 

9. When the contest had for a long time continued 
doubtful, and the courage of the Saguntines had increased, 
because they had succeeded in their resistance beyond 
their hopes, while the Carthaginian, because he had not 
conquered, felt as vanquished, the townsmen suddenly set 
up a shout, and drive their enemies to the ruins of the 
wall ; thence they force them, while embarrassed and dis- 
ordered ; and lastly, drove them back, routed and put to 



16 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxl, chap. 10. 



flight, to their camp. In the mean time it was announced 
that ambassadors had arrived from Rome ; to meet whom 
messengers were sent to the sea-side by Hannibal, to tell 
them that they could not safely come to him through so 
many armed bands of savage tribes, and that Hannibal at 
such an important conjuncture had not leisure to listen to 
embassies. It was obvious that, if not admitted, they 
would immediately repair to Carthage : he therefore sends 
letters and messengers beforehand to the leaders of the 
Barcine faction, to prepare the minds of their partisans, so 
that the other party might not be able n any thing to 
give an advantage to the Romans. 

10. That embassy, therefore, excepting that the ambas- 
sadors were admitted and heard, proved likewise vain and 
fruitless. Hanno alone, in opposition to the rest of the 
Senate, pleaded the cause of the treaty, amidst deep silence 
on account of his authority, and not from the approbation 
of the audience. He said: that he had admonished and 
forewarned them by the gods, the arbiters and witnesses of 
treaties, that they should not send the son of Hamilcar to 
the army ; that the manes, that the offspring of that man 
could not rest in peace, nor ever, while any one of the 
Barcine name and blood survived, would the Roman 
treaties continue undisturbed. " You, supplying as it 
were fuel to the flame, have sent to )'our armies a youth 
burning with the desire of sovereign power, and seeing 
but one road to his object, if by exciting war after war, he 
may live surrounded by amis and legions. You have 
therefore fostered this fire, .in which you now burn. 
Your armies invest Saguntum, whence they are forbidden 
by the treaty: ere long the Roman legions will invest 
Carthage, under the guidance of those gods through whose 
lid they revenged in the former war the infraction of the 
treaty. Are you unacquainted with the enemy, or with 
yourselves, or with the fortune of either nation ? Your 
good general refused to admit into his camp ambassadors 
coming from allies and in behalf of allies, and set at 
nought the law of nations. They, however, after being 
there repulsed, where not even the ambassadors of enemies 
are prohibited admittance, come to you : they require res- 
titution according to the treaty; let not guilt attach to 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



17 



the state, they demand to have delivered up to them the 
author of the trail agression, the person who is chargeable 
with this offense. The more gently they proceed— the 
slower they are to begin, the more unrelentingly, I fear, 
when they have once commenced, will they indulge resent- 
ment. Set before your eyes the islands iEgates and Eryx, 
all that for twenty-four years ye have suffered by land and 
sea. Xor was this boy the leader, but his father Hamilcar 
himself, a second Mars, as these people would have it : but 
we had not refrained from Tarentum, that is, from Italy, 
according to the treaty ; as now we do not refrain from 
Saguntuin. The gods and men have, therefore, prevailed 
over us ; and as to that about which there was a dispute 
in words, whether of the two nations had infringed the 
treaty, the issue of war, like an equitable judge, hath 
awarded the victory to the party on whose side justice 
stood. It is against Carthage that Hannibal is now mov- 
ing his vinece and towers: it is the wall of Carthage that 
he is shaking with his battering-ram. The ruins of Sagun- 
tum (oh that I may prove a false prophet !) will fall on our 
heads: and the war commenced against the Saguntines 
must be continued against the Romans. Shall we, there- 
fore, some one will say, deliver up Hannibal ? In what re- 
lates to him I am aware that my authority is of little 
weight, on account of my enmity with his father. But I 
both rejoice that Hamilcar peiished, for. this reason, that, 
had he lived, we should have row been engaged in a war 
with the Romans ; and this youth, as the fury and fire- 
brand of this war, I hate and detest. Xor ought he only to 
be given up in atonement for the violated treaty; but even 
though no one demanded him, he ought to be transported 
to the extremest shores of earth or sea, and banished to a 
distance whence neither his name nor any tidings of him 
can reach us, and he be unable to disturb the peace of a 
tranquil state. I therefore give my opinion, that ambas- 
sadors be sent immediately to Rome to satisfy the Senate ; 
others to tell Hannibal to lead away his army from Sagun- 
tum, and to deliver up Hannibal himself, according to the 
treaty to the Romans ; and I propose a third embassy, to 
make restitution to the Saguntines." 

II, When Hnnno had concluded, there was no occa- 



18 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [u. xxi., chap. 11. 



sion for any one to contend with him in debate, to such 
a decree were almost all the Senators devoted to Hanni- 
bal ; and they accused Hanno of having spoken with more 
malignity than Flaccus Valerius, the Roman ambassador. 
It was then said, in answer to the Roman ambassadors, 
" that the war had been commenced by the Saguntines, 
not by Hannibal ; and that the Roman people acted un- 
justly if they preferred the Saguntines to the most ancient 1 
alliance of the Carthaginians." While the Romans waste 
time in sending embassies, Hannibal, because his soldiers 
were fatigued with the battles and the works, allowed 
them rest for a few days, parties being stationed to guard 
the vines and other works. In the mean time he inflames 
their minds, now by inciting their anger against the ene- 
my, now with the hope of reward. But when he declared 
before the assembled army, that the plunder of the cap- 
tured city should be given to the soldiers, to such a degree 
were they all excited, that if the signal had been immedi- 
ately given, it appeared that they could not have been re- 
sisted by any force. The Saguntines, as they had a res- 
pite from fighting, neither for some days attacking nor 
attacked, so they had not, by night or day, ever ceased 
from toiling, that they might repair anew the wall in the 
quarter where the town had been exposed by the breach. 
A still more desperate storming than the former then as- 
sailed them ; nor, while all quarters resounded with vari- 
ous clamors, could they satisfactorily know where first or 
principally they should lend assistance. Hannibal, a^i an 
encouragement, was present in person, where a movable 
tower, exceeding in height all the fortifications of the city, 
was urged forward. When, being brought up, it had 
cleared the walls of their defenders by means of the cata- 
pultae and ballistaa ranged through all its stories, then 
Hannibal, thinking it a favorable opportunity, sends about 
five hundred Africans with pickaxes to undermine the 
wall: nor was the work difficult, since the unhewn stones 
were not fastened with lime, but filled in their interstices 
with clay, after the manner of ancient building. It fell, 
therefore, more extensively than it was struck, and through 

1 Alluding to the first treaty made in the year that the kings were ex- 
pelled from Rome. 



y.r. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



19 



the open spaces of the ruins troops of armed men rushed 
into the city. They also obtain possession of a rising 
ground, and, having collected thither catapults and ballis- 
tae, so that they might have a fort in the city itself, com- 
manding it like a citadel, they surround it with a wall ; 
and the Saguntines raise an inner wall before the part of 
the city which was not yet taken. On both sides they ex- 
ert the utmost vigor in fortifying and fighting ; but the 
Saguntines, by erecting these inner defenses, diminish 
daily the size of their city. At the same time, the want of 
all supplies increased through the length of the siege, and 
the expectation of foreign aid diminished, since the Ro- 
mans, their only hope, were at such a distance, and all the 
country round was in the power of the enemy. The sud- 
den departure of Hannibal against the Oretani and Carpe- 
tani 1 revived for a little their drooping spirits ; which two 
nations, though, exasperated by the severity of the levy, 
they had occasioned, by detaining the commissaries, the fear 
of a revolt, having been suddenly checked by the quick- 
ness of Hannibal, laid down the arms they had taken up. 

12. jSTor was the siege of Saguntum, in the mean time, 
less vigorously maintained ; Maharbal, the son of Himilco, 
whom Hannibal had set over the army, carrying on opera- 
tions so actively that neithei .e townsmen nor their ene- 
mies perceived that the general was away. He both en- 
gaged in several successful battles, and with three batter- 
ing-rams overt 1 ire w a portion of the wall*; and showed to 
Hannibal, on his arrival, the ground ail covered with fresh 
ruins. The army was therefore immediately led against 
the citadel itself, and a desperate combat was commenced 
with much slaughter on both sides, and part of the citadel 
was taken. The slight chance of a peace was then tried 
by two persons — Alcon a Saguntine, and Alorcus a Span- 
iard. Alcon, thinking he could effect something by en- 
treaties, having passed over, without the knowledge of the 

1 The Carpetani have already been mentioned, chap. v. The Oretani, 
their neighbors, occupied the country lying between the sources of the 
Baetis and the Anas, or what are now called the Guadalquiver and Gua- 
diana. In a part of Orospeda they 'deduced their name from a ci re- 
called Oretum, the site of which has been brought to light in a paltry 
village to which the name of Oreto still remains. — D'Anvilk. 



20 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [u. xxi., eiur. 13. 



Saguntines, to Hannibal by night, when his tears pro- 
duced no effect, and harsh conditions were offered as 
from an exasperated conqueror, becoming a deserter in- 
stead of an advocate, remained with the enemy, affirming 
that the man would be put to death who should treat for 
peace on such terms. For it was required that they 
should make restitution to the Turdetani ; and, after de- 
livering up all their gold and silver, departing from the 
city each with a single garment, should take up their 
dwelling where the Carthaginian should direct. Alcon 
having denied that the Saguntines would accept such 
terms of peace, Alorcus, asserting that when all else is 
subdued, the mind becomes subdued, offers himself as the 
proposer of that peace. Now at that time he was a sol- 
dier of Hannibai's, but publicly the friend and host of the 
Saguntines. Having openly delivered his weapon to the 
guards of the enemy and passed the fortifications, he was 
conducted, as he had himself requested, to the Saguntine 
prsetor; whither, when there was immediately a general 
rush of every description of people, the rest of the multi- 
tude being removed, an audience of the Senate is given to 
Alorcus, whose speech was to the following effect : 

13. "If your citizen Alcon, as he came to implore a 
peace from Hannibal, had in like manner brought back to 
you the terms of peace proposed by Hannibal, this jour- 
ney of mine would have been unnecessary ; by which cir- 
cumstance I should not have had to come to you as the 
legate of Hannibal, nor as a deserter. Since he has re- 
mained with your enemies, either through your fault or 
his own (through his own, if he counterfeited fear ; 
through yours, if among you there be danger to those 
who tell the truth), that you may not be ignorant that there 
are some terms of safety and peacirfor you, I have come 
to you in consideration of the ancient ties of hospitality 
which subsist between us. But that I speak what I ad- 
dress to you for your sake and that of no other, let even 
this be the proof: that neither while you resisted with 
your own strength, nor while you expected assistance 
from the Romans, did I ever make any mention of peace 
to you. But now, after you have neither any hope from 
the Romans, nor your own arms nor walls sufficiently de- 



y.r. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF HOME. 



21 



fend you, I bring to you a peace rather necessary than 
just : of effecting which there is thus some hope, if, as 
Hannibal offers it in the spirit of a conqueror, you listen 
to it as vanquished ; if you will consider not what is 
taken from you as loss (since all belongs to the conquer- 
or), but whatever is left as a gift. He takes away from 
you your city, which, already for the greater part in ruins, 
he has almost wholly in his possession ; he leaves you 
your territory, intending to mark out a place in which 
you may build a new town ; he commands that all the 
gold and silver, both public and private, shall be brought 
to him ; he preserves inviolate your persons and those of 
your wives and children, provided you are willing to de- 
part from Saguntum, unarmed, each with two garments. 
These terms a victorious enemy dictates. These, though 
harsh and grievous, your condition commends to you. 
Indeed I do not despair, when the power of every thing 
is given him, that he will remit something from these 
terms. But even these I think you ought rather to en- 
dure, than suffer, by the rights of war, yourselves to be 
slaughtered, your wives and children to be ravished and 
dragged into captivity before your faces." 

14. When an assembly of the people, by the gradual 
crowding round of the multitude / had mingled with the 
Senate to hear these proposals, the chief men suddenly 
withdrawing before an answer was returned, and throw- 
ing all the gold and silver collected, both from public and 
private stores, into a fire hastily kindled for that purpose, 
the greater part flung themselves also into it. When the 
dismay and agitation produced by this deed had pervaded 
the whole city, another noise was heard in addition from 
the citadel. A tower, long battered, had fallen down ; 
and when a Carthaginian cohort, rushing through the 
breach, had made a signal to the general that the city was 
destitute of the usual outposts and guards, Hannibal, 
thinking that there ought to be no delay at such an op- 
portunity, having attacked the city with his whole forces, 
took it in a moment, command being given that all the 
adults should be put to death ; which command, though 
cruel, was proved in the issue to have been almost neces- 
sary. For to whom of those men could mercy have been 



22 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., ciiap.15, 16. 



shown, who either, shut up with their wives and children, 
burned their houses over their own heads, or abroad in 
arms made no end of fighting, except in death. / 

15. The town was taken, with immense spoil. Though 
the greater part of the goods had been purposely damaged 
by their owners, and resentment had made scarce any dis- 
tinction of age in the massacre, and the captives were the 
booty of the soldiers, still it appears that some money was 
raised from the price of the effects that were sold, and 
that much costly .furniture and garments were sent to 
Carthage. Some have written that Saguntum was taken 
in the eighth month after it began to be besieged ; that 
Hannibal then retired to New Carthage, into winter- 
quarters ; and that in the fifth month after he had set out 
from Carthage he arrived in Italy. If this be so, it was 
impossible that Publius Cornelius and Tiberius Semproni- 
iis could have been consuls, to whom both at the begin- 
ning of the siege the Saguntine ambassadors were dis- 
patched, and who, during their office, fought with Hanni- 
bal ; the one at the river Ticinus, and both some time af- 
ter at the Trebia. Either all these events took place in a 
somewhat shorter period, or Saguntum was not begun to 
be besieged, but taken at the beginning of the year in 
which Publius Cornelius and Tiberius Sempronius were 
consuls. For the battle at Trebia could not have been so 
late as the year of Cneius Servilius and Caius Flaminius, 
since Flaminius entered on the office at Ariminum, hav- 
ing been created by the consul Tiberius Sempronius ; who, 
having repaired to Rome after the battle at Trebia for the 
purpose of creating consuls, returned when the election 
was finished to the army into winter-quarters. 

16. Nearly about the same time, both the ambassadors 
who had returned from Carthage brought intelligence to 
Home that all appearances were hostile, and the destruc- 
tion of Saguntum was announced. Then such grief, and 
pity for allies so undeservingly destroyed, and shame that 
aid was withheld, and rage against the Carthaginians, and 
fear for the issue of events, as if the enemy were already 
at the gates, took at once possession of the Senators, that 
their minds, disturbed by so many simultaneous emotions, 
trembled with fear rather than deliberated. For they con- 



y.r. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



23 



sidered that neither had a more spirited or warlike enemy 
ever encountered them, nor had the Roman state been 
ever so sunk in sloth and unfit for war ; that the Sardin- 
ians, the Corsicans, the Istrians, and the Illyrians, had rath- 
er kept in a state of excitement than exercised the Ro- 
man arms ; and with the Gauls it had been more proper- 
ly a tumult than a war. That the Carthaginian, a veter- 
an enemy, ever victorious during the hardest service for 
twenty-three years among the tribes of Spain, first trained 
to war under Hamilcar, then Hasdrubal, now Hannibal, a 
most active leader, and fresh from the destruction of a 
most opulent city, was passing the Iberus ; that along with 
them he was bringing the numerous tribes of Spain al- 
ready aroused, and was about to excite the nations of Gaul, 
ever desirous of war; and that a war against the world 
was to be maintained in Italy and before the walls of 
Rome. 

17. The provinces had already been previously named 
for the consuls ; and having been now ordered to cast lots 
for them, Spain fell to Cornelius, and Africa with Sicily to 
Sempronius. Six legions were decreed for that year, and 
as many of the allies as should seem good to the consuls, 
and as great a fleet as could be equipped. Twenty-four 
thousand Roman infantry were levied, and one thousand 
eight hundred horse : forty thousand infantry of the allies, 
and four thousand four hundred horse : two hundred and 
twenty ships of five banks of oars, and twenty light gal- 
leys, were launched. It was then proposed to the people 
" whether they willed and commanded that war should be 
declared against the people of Cartilage;" and for the 
sake of that war a supplication was made through the 
city, and the gods were implored that the war which the 
Roman people had decreed might have a prosperous and 
fortunate issue. The forces were thus divided between 
the consuls. To Sempronius two legions were given (each 
of these consisted of four thousand infantry and three 
hundred horse), and sixteen thousand of the infantry of 
the allies, and one thousand eight hundred horse : one 
hundred and sixty ships of war, and twelve light galleys. 
With these land and sea forces Tiberius Sempronius was 
dispatched to Sicily, in order to transport his army to Af- 



24 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. x*i., chap. 18. 



rica if the other consul should be able to prevent the Car- 
thaginian from invading Italy. Fewer troops were given 
to Cornelius, because Lucius Manlius, the praetor, also had 
been sent with no weak force into Gaul. The number of 
ships, in particular, was reduced to Cornelius. Sixty of 
five banks of oars were assigned to him (for they did not 
believe that the enemy would come by sea, or would fight 
after that mode of warfare), and two Roman legions with 
their regular cavalry, and fourteen thousand of the infan- 
try of the allies, with one thousand six hundred horse. 
The province of Gaul being not as yet exposed to the Car- 
thaginian invasion, had, in the same year, two Roman le- 
gions, ten thousand ali : ed infantry, one thousand allied 
cavalry, and six hundred Roman. 

18. These preparations having been thus made, in order 
that every thing that was proper might be done before 
they commenced war, they send Quintus Fabius, Marcus 
Livius, Lucius iEmiiius, Caius Licinius, and Quintus Bse- 
bius, men of advanced years, as ambassadors into Africa, 
to inquire of the Carthaginians if Hannibal had laid siege 
to Saguntum by public authority ; and if they should con- 
fess it, as it seemed probable they would, and defend it as 
done by public authority, to declare war against the peo- 
ple of Carthage. After the Romans arrived at Carthage, 
when an audience of the Senate was given them, and Quin- 
tus Fabius had addressed no further inquiry than the one 
with which they had been charged, then one of the Car- 
thaginians replied : " Even your former embassy, O Ro- 
mans, was precipitate, when you demanded Hannibal to be 
g\yen up, as attacking Saguntum on his own authority; 
but your present embassy, though so far milder in words, 
is in fact more severe. For then Hannibal was both ac- 
cused, and required to be delivered up ; now both a con- 
fession of wrong is exacted from us, and, as though we had 
confessed, restitution is immediately demanded. But I 
think that the question h not whether Saguntum was at- 
tacked by private or public authority, but whether it was 
with right or wrong. For in the case of our citizen, the 
right of inquiry, whether he has acted by his own pleasure 
or ours, and the punishment also, belongs to us. The only 
dispute with you is, whether it was allowed to be done by 



r.R. 534.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 25 



the treaty. Since, therefore, it pleases you that a distinc- 
tion should be made between what commanders do by pub- 
lic authority, and what on their own suggestion, there was 
a treaty between us made by the consul Lutatius; in 
which, though provision was made for the allies of both, 
there is no provision made for the Saguntines, for they 
were not as yet your allies. But in that treaty which was 
made with Hasdrubal, the Saguntines are excepted ; against 
which I am going to say nothing but what I have learned 
from you. For you denied that you were bound by the 
treaty which Caius Lutatius, the consul, first made w T ith 
us, because that it had neither been made by the authority 
of the Senate nor the command of the people ; and anoth- 
er treaty was therefore concluded anew by public authori- 
ty. If your treaties do not bind you unless they are made 
by your authority and your commands, neither can the 
treaty of Hasdrubal, which he made without our knowl- 
edge, be binding on us. Cease, therefore, to make men- 
tion of Saguntum and the Iberus, and let your mind at 
length bring forth that with which it has long been in la- 
bor." Then the Roman, having formed a fold in his robe, 
said, " Here we bring to you peace and war ; take which 
you please." On this speech they exclaimed no less fierce- 
ly, in reply : " He might give which he chose.;" and when 
he again, unfolding his robe, said "he gave war," they all 
answered that " they accepted it, and would maintain it 
with the same spirit with which they accepted it." 

19. This direct inquiry and denunciation of war seemed 
more consistent with the dignity of the Roman people, 
both before and now, especially when Saguntum was de- 
stroyed, than to cavil in words about the obligation of treat- 
ies; for if it was a subject for a controversy of words, in 
what was the treaty of Hasdrubal to be compared with the 
former treaty of Lutatius, which was altered ? Since, in the 
treaty of Lutatius, it was expressly added, " that it should 
only be held good if the people sanctioned it ;" but in the 
treaty of Hasdrubal, neither was there any such exception; 
and that treaty during his life had been so established by 
the silence of so many years, that not even after the death 
of its author was any change made in it. Although even 
were they to abide by the former treaty, there had been 



26 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. j> xxi., chap. 20. 



sufficient provision made for the Saguntines by excepting 
the al.Ues of both states ; for neither was it added, " those 
who then were," nor " those who should afterwards be ad- 
mitted and since it is allowable to admit new allies, who 
could think it proper, either that no people should be re- 
ceived for any services into friendship ? or that, being re- 
ceived under protection, they should not be defended? It 
was only stipulated that the allies of the Carthaginians 
should not be excited to revolt, nor, revolting of their own 
accord, be received. The Roman ambassadors, according 
as they had been commanded at Rome, passed over from 
Carthage into Spain, in order to visit the nations, and ei- 
ther to allure them into an alliance or dissuade them from 
joining the Carthaginians. They came first to the Bar- 
gusii, by whom having been received with welcome, because 
they were weary of the Carthaginian government, they ex- 
cited many of the states beyond the Iberus to the desire 
of a revolution. Thence they came to the Volciani, whose 
reply being celebrated through Spain, dissuaded the other 
states from an alliance with the Romans ; for thus the old- 
est member in their council made answer : " What sense 
of shame have ye, Romans, to ask of us that we should 
prefer your friendship to that of the Carthaginians, when 
you, their allies, betrayed the Saguntines with greater 
cruelty than that with which the Carthaginians, their ene- 
mies, destroyed them? There, methinks, you should look 
for allies, where the massacre of Saguntum is unknown. 
The ruins of Saguntum will remain a warning as melan- 
choly as memorable to the states of Spain, that no one 
should confide in the faith or alliance of Rome." Having 
been then commanded to depart immediately from the ter- 
ritory of the Volciani, they afterwards received no kinder 
words from any of the councils of Spain : they therefore 
pass into Gaul, after having gone about through Spain to 
no purpose. 

20. Among the Gauls a new and alarming spectacle was 
seen, by reason of their coming (such is the custom of the 
nation) in arms to the assembly. When, extolling in their 
discourse the renown and valor of the Roman people, and 
the wide extent of their empire, they had requested that 
they would refuse a pr . :age through their territory and 



r.B. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



27 



cities to the Carthaginian invading Italy, such laughter 
and yelling is said to have arisen that the youths were 
with difficulty composed to order by the magistrates and 
old men. So absurd and shameless did the request seem, 
to propose that the Gauls, rather than suffer the war to 
pass on to Italy, should turn it upon themselves and expose 
their own lands to be laid waste instead of those of others. 
When the tumult was at length allayed, answer was re- 
turned to the ambassadors, " that they had neither experi- 
enced good from the Romans, nor wrong from the Cartha- 
ginians, on account of which they should either take up 
arms in behalf of the Romans, or against the Carthagini- 
ans. On the contrary, they had heard that men of their 
nation had been driven from the lands and confines of Italy 
by the Roman people, that they had to pay a tribute, and 
suffered other indignities. ,? Xearly the same was said and 
heard in the other assemblies of Gaul ; nor did they hear 
any thing friendly or pacific before they came to Mar- 
seilles. There, everv thing found out by the care and 
fidelity of the allies ,*as made known to them — "that the 
minds of the Gauls had been already prepossessed by Han- 
nibal, but that not even by him would that nation be found 
very tractable (so fierce and untamable are their disposi- 
tions), unless the affections of the chiefs should every now 
and then be conciliated with gold, of which that people are 
most covetous." Having thus gone round through the 
tribes of Spain and Gaul, the ambassadors return to Rome 
not long after the consuls had set out for their provinces. 
They found the whole city on tiptoe in expectation of war, 
the report being sufficiently confirmed that the Carthagin- 
ians had already passed the Iberus. 

JFi. Hannibal, after the taking of Saguntum,had retired 
to New Carthage into winter-quarters ; and there, having 
heard what had been done and decreed at Rome and Car- 
thage, and that he was not only the leader, but also the 
cause of the war, after having divided and sold the remains 
of the plunder, thinking there ought to be no longer delay, 
he calls together and thus addresses his soldiers of the 
Spanish race : " I believe, allies, that even you yourselves 
perceive that, all the tribes of Spain having been reduced 
to peace, we must either conclude our campaigns and dis- 



28 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chap. 21. 



band our armies, or transfer the war into other regions : 
for thus these nations will flourish amidst the blessings not 
only of peace, but also of victory, ,if we seek from other 
countries spoils and renown. Since, therefore, a campaign 
far from home soon awaits you, and it is uncertain when 
you shall again see your homes, and all that is there dear 
to you, if any one of you wishes to visit his friends, I grant 
him leave of absence. I give you orders to be here at the 
beginning of spring, that, with the good assistance of the 
gods, we may enter on a war which will prove one of great 
glory and spoil." This power of visiting their homes, vol- 
untarily offered, was acceptable to almost all, already long- 
ing to see their friends, and foreseeing in future a still 
longer absence. Repose through the whole season of win- 
ter, between toils already undergone and those that were 
soon to be endured, repaired the vigor of their bodies and 
minds to encounter all difficulties afresh. At the begin- 
ning of spring they assembled according to command. 
Hannibal, when he had reviewed the auxiliaries of all the 
nations, having gone to Gades, performs his vows to Her- 
cules ; and binds himself by new vows, provided his other 
projects should have a prosperous issue. Then dividing 
his care at the same time between the offensive and de- 
fensive operations of the war, lest while he was advancing 
on Italy by a land journey through Spain and Gaul, Africa 
should be unprotected and exposed to the Romans from 
Sicily, he resolved to strengthen it with a powerful force. 
For this purpose he requested a reinforcement from Afri- 
ca, chiefly of light-armed spearmen, in order that the Afri- 
cans might serve in Spain, and the Spaniards in Africa, 
each likely to be a better soldier at a distance from home, as 
if bound by mutual pledges. He sent into Africa thirteen 
thousand eight hundred and fifty targeteers, eight hun- 
dred and seventy Balearic slingers, and one thousand two 
hundred horsemen, composed of various nations. He or- 
ders these forces partly to be used as a garrison for Car- 
thage, and partly to be distributed through Africa : at the 
same time having sent commissaries into the different 
states, he orders four thousand chosen youth whom they 
had levied to be conducted to Carthage, both as a garrison 
and as hostages. 



t.b. 534.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 29 



22. Thinking also that Spain ought not to be neglected 
(and the less because he was aware that it had been trav- 
ersed by the Roman ambassadors, to influence the minds 
of the chiefs), he assigns that province to his brother Has- 
drubal, a man of active spirit, and strengthens him chiefly 
with African troops : eleven thousand eight hundred and 
fifty African infantry, three hundred Ligurians, and five 
hundred Balearians. To these forces of infantry were add- 
ed four hundred horsemen of the Libyphcenicians, a mixed 
race of Carthaginians and Africans ; of the Numidians 
and Moors, who border on the ocean, to the number of 
one thousand eight hundred, and a small band of Ilergetes 
from Spain, amountii y to two hundred horse ; and, that 
no description of lana force might be wanting, fourteen 
elephants. A fleet was given him besides to defend the 
sea-coast (because it might be supposed that the Romans 
would then fight in the same mode of warfare by which 
they had formerly prevailed), fifty quinqueremes, two 
quadrireraes, five triremes ; but only thirty-two quinque- 
remes and five triremes were properly fitted out and man- 
ned -vvith rowers. From Gades he returned to the winter- 
quarters or the army at Carthage ; and thence setting out , 
he led his forces by the city Etovissa to the Iberus and the 
sea-coast. There, it is reported, a youth of divine aspect 
was seen by him in his sleep, who said, " that he was sent 
by Jupiter as the guide of Hannibal into Italy, and that he 
should, therefore, follow him, nor in any direction turn his 
eyes away from him." At first he followed in terror, look- 
ing nowhere, either around or behind : afterwards, through 
the curiosity of the human mind, when he revolved in his 
mind what that could be on which he was forbidden to 
look back, he could not restrain his eyes ; then he beheld 
behind him a serpent of wonderful size moving along with 
an immense destruction of trees and bushes, and after it 
a cloud following with thunderings from the skies; and 
that then inquiring " what was that great commotion, and 
what the cause of the prodigy;" he heard in reply: "That 
it was the devastation of Italy : that he should continue to 
advance forward, nor inquire further, but suffer the fates 
to remain in obscurity." 

23. Cheered by this vision/he transported his forces in 



30 



THE HISTORY OF KOME. [u. xxr., chap. 24. 



three divisions across the Iberus, having sent emissaries 
before him to conciliate by gifts the minds of the Gauls, 
in the quarter through which his army was to be led, and 
to examine the passes of the Alps. He led ninety thou- 
sand infantry and twelve thousand cavalry across the Ibe- 
rus. He then subdued the Ilergetes, the Bargusii, the 
Ausetani, and that part of Lacetania which lies at the foot 
of the Pyrenaean mountains; and he placed Hanno in 
command over all this district, that the narrow gorges 
which connect Spain with Gaul might be under his power. 
Ten thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry were given 
to Hanno for the defense of the country he was to occupy. 
After the army began to march through the passes of the 
Pyrenees, and a more certain rumor of the Roman war 
spread through the barbarians, three thousand of the Car- 
petanian infantry turned back : it clearly appeared that 
they were not so much swayed by the prospect of the war 
as by the length of the journey and the insuperable pas- 
sage of the AlpSo Hannibal, because it was hazardous to 
recall or detain them by force, lest the fierce minds of the 
rest might also be irritated, sent home above seven thou- 
sand men, whom also he had observed to be annoyed with 
the service, pretending that the Carpetani had also been 
dismissed by him. 

24. Then, lest delay and ease might unsettle their 
minds, he crosses the Pyrenees with the rest of his forces, 
and pitches his camp at the town Illiberis. The Gauls, 
though they had heard that the war was directed against 
Italy, yet because there was a report that the Spaniards 
on the other side of the Pyrenees had been reduced by 
force, and that strong forces had been imposed on them, 
being roused to arms through the fear of slavery, assem- 
bled certain tribes at Kuscino. When this was an- 
nounced to Hannibal, he, having more fear of the delay 
than of the war, sent envoys to say to their princes, " that 
he wished to confer with them ; and that they should ei- 
ther come nearer to Illiberis, or that he would proceed to 
Ruscino, that their meeting might be facilitated by vicin- 
ity ; for that he would either be happy to receive them 
into his camp, or would himself without hesitation come 
to them ; since he had entered Gaul as a friend, and not 



t.b. 534.] THE HISTOBY OF EOME. 



31 



as an enemy, and would not draw the sword, if the Gauls 
did not force him, before he came to Italy." These pro- 
posals, indeed, were made by his messengers. But when 
the princes of the Gauls, having immediately moved their 
camp to Illiberis, came without reluctance to the Cartha- 
ginian, being won by his presents, they suffered his army 
to pass through their territories, by the town of Ruscino, 
without any molestation. 

25. In the mean time no further intelligence had been 
brought into Italy to Rome by the ambassadors of Mar- 
seilles than that Hannibal had passed the Iberus ; when 
the Boii, as if he had already passed the Alps, revolted af- 
ter instigating the Insubrians ; not so much through their 
ancient resentment towards the Roman people as on ac- 
count of their having felt aggrieved that the colonies of 
Placentia and Cremona had been lately planted in the 
Gallic territory about the Po. Having, therefore, sudden- 
ly taken up arms, and made an attack on that very terri- 
tory, they created so much of terror and tumult, that not 
only the rustic population, but even the Roman triumvirs, 
Caius Lutatius, Cains Serviiius, and Titus Annius, who 
had come to assign the lands, distrusting the walls of Pla- 
centia, fled to Mutina. About the name of Lutatius there 
is no doubt: in place of Caius Serviiius and Titus Annius 
some annals have Quintus Acilius and Caius Herennius; 
others Publius Cornelius Asina and Caius Papirius Maso. 
This point is also uncertain, whether the ambassadors 
sent to expostulate to the Boii suffered violence, or wheth- 
er an attack was made on the triumvirs while measuring 
out the lands. While they were shut up in Mutina, and 
a people unskilled in the arts of besieging towns, and, at 
the same time, most sluggish at military operations, lay 
inactive before the walls, which they had not touched, 
pretended proposals for a peace were set on foot ; and the 
ambassadors, being invited out to a conference by the 
chiefs of the Gauls, are seized, not only contrary to the 
law of nations, but in violation of the faith which was 
pledged on that very occasion — the Gauls denying that 
they would set them free unless their hostages were re- 
stored to them. When this intelligence respecting the 
ambassadors was announced, and that Mutina and its 



32 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xx*., chap. 26. 



garrison were in danger, Lucius Manlius, the praetor, in- 
flamed with rage, led his army in haste to Mutina. There 
were then woods on both sides of the road, most of the 
country being uncultivated. There, having advanced 
without previously exploring his route, he fell suddenly 
into an ambuscade ; and after much slaughter of his men, 
with difficulty made his way into the open plains. Here 
a camp was fortified, and because confidence was wanting 
to the Gauls to attack it, the spirit of the soldiers revived, 
although it was sufficiently evident that their strength 
was much clipped. The journey was then commenced 
anew ; nor while the army was led in march through the 
open tracts did the enemy appear; but when the woods 
were again entered, then attacking the rear, amidst great 
confusion and alarm of all, they slew eight hundred sol- 
diers, and took six standards. There was an end to the 
Gauls of creating, and to the Romans of experiencing ter- 
ror, when they escaped from the pathless and entangled 
thicket; then easily defending their march through the 
open ground, the Romans directed their course to Tane- 
turn, a village near the Fo; where, by a temporary fortifi- 
cation, and the supplies conveyed by the river, and also 
by the aid of the Brixian Gauls, they defended themselves 
against the daily increasing multitude of their enemies. 

26. When the account of this sudden disturbance was 
brought to Rome, and the Senators heard that the Punic 
had Jso been increased by a Gallic war, they order 
Caius Atilius, the praetor, to carry assistance to Manlius 
with one Roman legion and five thousand of the allies, en- 
rolled in the late levy by the consul, who without any con- 
test, for the enemy had retired through fear, arrived at 
Tanetum, At the same time Publius Cornelius, a new le- 
gion having been levied in the room of that which was 
sent with the praetor, setting out from the city with sixty 
ships of war, by the coast of Etruria and Liguria, and then 
the mountains of the Salves, arrived at Marseilles, and 
pitched his camp at the nearest mouth of the Rhone (for 
the stream flows down to the sea divided into several 
channels), scarcely as yet well believing that Hannibal had 
crossed the Pyren?ean mountains ; whom, when he ascer- 
tained to be also meditating the passage of the Rhone, uu- 



y.r. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



33 



certain in what place he might .eet him, his soldiers not 
yet being sufficiently recovered from the tossing of the 
sea, he sends forward in the mean time three hundred 
chosen horses, with Massilian guides and Gallic auxiliaries, 
to explore all the country, and observe the enemy from a 
safe distance. Hannibai, the other states being pacified 
by fear or bribes, had now come into the territory of the 
Volca?, a powerful nation. They, indeed, dwell on both 
sides of the Rhone ; but doubting that the Carthaginian 
could be driven from the hither bank, in order that they 
might have the river as a defense, having transported al- 
most all their effects across the Rhone, occupied in arras 
the farther bank of the river. ^ Hannibal, by means of pres- 
ents, persuades the other inhabitants of the river-side, and 
some even of the Volca? themselves, whom their homes 
had detained, to collect from every quarter and build 
ships ; and they at the same time themselves desired that 
the army should be transported, and their country relieved, 
as soon as possible, from the vast multitude of men that 
burdened it. A great number, therefore, of ships and 
boats, rudely formed for the neighboring passages, were 
collected together; and the Gauls, first beginning the plan, 
hollow ' out some new ones from single trees; and then 
the soldiers i "lemselves, at once induced by the plenty of 
materials and ihe easiness of the work, hastily formed 
shapeless hulks, in which they could transport themselves 
and their baggage, caring about nothing else, provided 
they could float and contain their burden. 

27. And now, when all things were sufficiently prepared 
for crossing, the enemy over against them occupying the 
whole bank, horse and foot, deterred them. In order to 
dislodge them, Hannibal orders Hanno, the son of Bomil- 
car, at the first watch of the night, to proceed with a part 
of the forces, principally Spanish, one day's journey up the 
river ; and having crossed it where he might first be able, 
as secretly as possible, to lead round his forces, that when 
the occasion required he might attack the enemy in the 
rear. The Gauls, given him as guides for the purpose, 
inform him that about twenty-five miles from thence, the 
river, spreading round a small island, broader where it was 
divided, and therefore with a shallower channel, presented 



34 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chap. 28. 



a passage. At this place timber was quickly cut down 
and rafts formed, on which men, horses, and other burdens 
might be conveyed over. The Spaniards, without making 
any difficulty, having put their clothes in bags of leather, 
and themselves leaning on their bucklers, placed beneath 
them, swam across the river. And the rest of the army, 
after passing on the rafts joined together, and pitching 
their camp near the river, being fatigued by the journey 
of the night and the labor of the work, are refreshed by 
the rest of one day, their leader being anxious to execute 
his design at a proper season. Setting out next day from 
this place, they signify by raising a smoke that they had 
crossed, and were not far distant ; which when Hannibal 
understood, that he might not be wanting on the opportu- 
nity, he gives the signal for passing. The infantry al* 
ready had the boats prepared and fitted ; a line of ships 
higher up transporting the horsemen for the most part 
near their horses swimming beside them, in order to break 
the force of the current, rendered the water smooth to 
the boats crossing below. A great part of the horses 
were led across swimming, held by bridles from the stern, 
except those which they put on board saddled and bridled, 
in order that they might be ready to be used by the rider 
the moment he disembarked on the strand. 

28. The Gauls run down to the bank to meet them with 
various whoopings and songs, according to their custom, 
shaking their shields above their heads, and brandishing 
their weapons in their right hands, although such a multi- 
tude of ships in front of them alarmed them, together 
with the loud roaring of the river, and the mingled clam- 
ors of the sailors and soldiers, both those who were striv- 
ing to break through the force of the current and those 
who from the other bank were encouraging their com- 
rades on their passage. While sufficiently dismayed by 
this tumult in front, more terrifying shouts from behind 
assailed them, their camp having been taken by Hanno ; 
presently he himself came up, and a twofold terror encom- 
passed them, both such a multitude of armed men landing 
from the ships, and this unexpected army pressing on 
their rear. When the Gauls, having made a prompt and 
bold effort to force the enemy, were themselves repulsed, 



y.k. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



35 



they break through where a way seemed most open, and 
fly in consternation to their villages around. Hannibal, 
now despising these tumultuary onsets of the Gauls, hav- 
ing transported the rest of his forces at leisure, pitches his 
camp. I believe that there were various plans for trans- 
porting the elephants ; at least there are various accounts 
of the way in which it was done. Some relate that, af- 
ter the elephants were assembled together on the bank, 
the fiercest of them, being provoked by his keeper, pur- 
sued him as he swam across the water, to which he had 
-run for refuge, and drew after him the rest of the herd ; 
the mere force of the stream hurrying them to the other 
bank, when the bottom had failed each, fearful of the 
depth. But there is more reason to believe that they 
were conveyed across on rafts ;* which plan, as it must 
have appeared the safer before execution, is after it the 
more entitled to credit. They extended from the bank 
into the river one raft two hundred feet long and fifty 
broad, which, fastened higher up by several strong cables 
to the bank, that it might not be carried down by the 
stream, they covered, like a bridge, with earth thrown 
upon it, so that the beasts might tread upon it without 
fear, as over solid ground. Another raft equally broad, 
and a hundred feet long, fit for crossing the river, was 
joined to this first ; and when the elephants, driven along 
the stationary raft as along a road, had passed, the females 
leading the way, on to the smaller raft which was joined to 
it, the lashings, by which it was slightly fastened, being 
immediately let go, it was drawn by some light boats to 
the opposite side. The first having been thus landed, the 
rest were then returned for and carried across. They 
gave no signs of alarm whatever while they were driven 
along,- as it were, on a continuous bridge. The first fear 
was when, the raft being loosed from the rest, they were 
hurried into the deep. Then pressing together, as those 
at the edges drew back from the water, they produced 
some disorder, till mere terror, when they saw water all 
around, produced quiet, ^ome, indeed, becoming infuria- 
ted, fell into the river; but, steadied by their own weight, 
having thrown off their riders, and seeking step by step 
the shallows, they escaped to the shore. 



36 



THE HISTORY OF ROME, [b.xxj., chap.29, 30. 



29. While the elephants were conveyed over, Hannibal, 
in the mean time, had sent five hundred Numidian horse- 
men towards the camp of the Romans, to observe where 
and bow numerous their forces were, and what they were 
designing. The three hundred Roman horsemen sent, as 
was before said, from the mouth of the Rhone, meet this 
band of cavalry; and a more furious engagement than 
could be expected from the number of the combatants 
takes place. For, beside? many wounds, the loss on both 
sides was also nearly equal; and the flight and dismay of 
the Numidians gave victory to the Romans, now exceed- 
ingly fatigued. There fell of the conquerors one hundred 
and sixty, not all Roman s> but partly Gauls : of the van- 
quished more than two hundred. This commencement, 
and at the same time omen of the war, as it portended to 
the Romans a prosperous issue of the whole, so did it also 
the success of a doubtful and by no means bloodless con- 
test. When, after the action had thus occurred, his own 
men returned to each general, Scipio could adopt no fixed 
plan of proceeding, except that he should form his meas- 
ures from the plans and undertakings of the enemy ; and 
Hannibal, uncertain whether he should pursue the march 
he had commenced into Italy, or fight with the Roman 
army which had first presented itself, the arrival of ambas- 
sadors from the Boii, and of a petty prince called Maga- 
lus, diverted from an immediate engagement, who, declar- 
ing that they would be the guides of his journey and the 
companions of his dangers, gave it as their opinion that 
Italy ought to be attacked with the entire force of the 
war, his strength having been nowhere previously impair- 
ed. The troops indeed feared the enemy, the remem- 
brance of the former war not being yet obliterated ; but 
much more did they dread tLe immense journey and the 
Alps, a thing formidable by report, particularly to the in- 
experienced. 

30. Hannibal, therefore, when his own resolution was 
fixed to proceed in his course and advance on Italy, hav- 
ing summoned an assembly, works upon the minds of the 
soldiers in various ways, by reproof and exhortation. He 
said that " he Avondered what sudden fear had seized 
breasts ever before undismayed; that through so many 



y.r. 534.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 31 



years they had made their campaigns with conquest ; nor 
had departed from Spain before all the nations and coun- 
tries which two opposite seas embrace were subjected to 
the Carthaginians. That then, indignant that the Romans 
demanded those, whosoever had besieged Saguntum, to be 
delivered up to them, as on account of a crime, they had 
passed the Iberus to blot out the name of the Romans, and 
to emancipate the world. That then the way seemed long 
to no one, though they were pursuing it from the setting 
to the rising of the sun. That now, when they saw by far 
the greater part of their journey accomplished, the passes 
of the Pyrenees surmounted, amidst the most ferocious na- 
tions, the Rhone, that mighty river, crossed, in spite of the 
opposition of so many thousand Gauls, the fury of the riv- 
er itself having been overcome, when they had the Alps in 
sight, the other side of which was Italy, should they halt 
through weariness at the very gates of the enemy, imagin- 
ing the Alps to be — what else than lofty mountains? 
That supposing them to be higher than the summits of the 
Pyrenees, assuredly no part of the earth reached the sky, 
nor was insurmountable by mankind. The Alps, in fact, 
w< inhabited and cultivated — produced and supported 
living beings. Were they passable by a few men and im- 
passable to armies ? That those very ambassadors whom 
they saw before them had not crossed the Alps borne 
aloft through the air on wings; neither were their ances- 
tors indeed natives of the soil, but settling in Italy from 
foreign countries, had often as emigrants safely crossed 
these very Alps in immense bodies, with their wives and 
children. To the armed soldier, carrying nothing with- 
him but the instruments of war, what in reality was im- 
pervious or insurmountable? That Saguntum might be 
taken, what dangers, what toils were for eight months un- 
dergone ! Now, when their aim was Rome, the capital of 
the world, could any thing appear so dangerous or difficult 
as to delay their undertaking ? That the Gauls had former • 
ly gained possession of that very country which the Car- 
thaginian despairs of being able to approach. That they 
must, therefore, either yield in spirit and valor to that na- 
tion which they had so often during those times overcome ; 
or look forward, as the end of their journey, to the plain 



38 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chap. 31. 



which spreads between the Tiber and the walls of 
Rome." 

31. He orders them, roused by these exhortations, to re- 
fresh themselves and prepare for the journey. Next day, 
proceeding upward along the bank of the Rhone, he makes 
for the inland part of Gaul : not because it was the more 
direct route to the Alps, but believing that the farther he 
retired from the sea, the Romans would be less in his way ; 
with whom, before he arrived in Italy, he had no intention 
of engaging. After four days' march he came to the Isl- 
and : there the streams of the Arar and the Rhone, flowing 
down from different branches of the Alps, after embracing 
a pretty large tract of country, flow into one. The name 
of the Island is given to the plains that lie between them. 
The Ailobroges dwell near, a nation even in those days in- 
ferior to none in Gaul in power and fame. They were at 
that time at Variance. Two brothers were contending for 
the sovereignty. The elder, named Brancus, who had be- 
fore been king, was driven out by his younger brother and 
a party of the younger men, who, inferior in right, had more 
of power. When the decision of this quarrel was most 
opportunely referred to Hannibal, being appointed arbitra- 
tor of the kingdom, he restored the sovereignty to the eld- 
er, because such had been the opinion of the Senate and 
the chief men. In return for this service, he was assisted 
with a supply of provisions, and plenty of all necessaries, 
particularly clothing, which the Alps, notorious for ex- 
treme cold, rendered necessary to be prepared. After 
composing the dissensions of the Ailobroges, when he now 
was proceeding to the Alps, he directed his course thither, 
not by the straight road, but turned to the left into the 
country of the Tricastini ; thence, by the extreme bounda- 
ry of the territory of the Yocontii, he proceeded to the 
Tricorii, his way not being anywhere obstructed till he 
came to the river Druentia. This stream, also arising 
amidst the Alps, is by far the most difficult to pass of all 
the rivers in Gaul; for though it rolls down an immense 
body of water, yet it does not admit of ships ; because, 
being restrained by no banks, and flowing in several and 
not always the same channels, and continually forming 
new shallows and new whirlpools (on which account the 



Y.R. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



39 



passage is also uncertain to a person on foot), and rolling 
down besides gravelly stones, it affords no firm or safe 
passage to those who enter it; and having been at that 
time swollen by showers, it created great disorder among 
the soldiers as they crossed, when, in addition to other 
difficulties, they w T ere of themselves confused by their own 
hurry and uncertain shouts. 

32, Publius Cornelius the consul, about three days after 
Hannibal moved from the bank of the Rhone, had come to 
the camp of the enemy, with his army drawn up in square, 
intending to make no delay in fighting ; but when he saw 
the fortifications deserted, and that he could not easily 
come up with them so far in advance before him, he return- 
ed to the sea and his fleet, in order more easily and safely 
to encounter Hannibal when descending from the Alps. 
But that Spain, the province which he had obtained by lot, 
might not be destitute of Roman auxiliaries, he sent his 
brother Cneius Scipio, with the principal part of his forces, 
against Hasdrubal, not only to defend the old allies and 
conciliate new, but also to drive Hasdrubal out of Spain. 
He himself, w 7 ith a very small force, returned to Genoa, 
intending to defend Italy with the army which was around 
the Po. From the Druentia, by a road that lay principal- 
ly through plains, Hannibal arrived at the Alps without 
molestation from the Gauls that inhabit those regions. 
Then, though the scene had been previously anticipated 
from report (by w r hich uncertainties are wont to be exag- 
gerated), yet the height of the mountains when viewed so 
near, and the snows almost mingling with the sky, the 
shapeless huts situated on the cliffs, the cattle and beasts 
of burden withered by the cold, the men unshorn and 
wildly dressed, all things, animate and inanimate, stiffened 
with frost, and other objects more terrible to be seen than 
described, renewed their alarm. To them, marching up 
the first acclivities, the mountaineers appeared occupying 
the heights overhead ; who, if they had occupied the more 
concealed valleys, might, by rushing out suddenly to the 
attack, have occasioned ^reat flight and havoc. Hannibal 
orders them to halt, and having sent forward Gauls to 
view the ground, when he found there was no passage that 
way, he pitches his camp in the widest valley he could find, 



40 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [u. xxi., chap. 33. 



among places all rugged and precipitous. Then, having 
learned from the same Gauls, when they had mixed in con- 
versation with the mountaineers, from whom they differed 
little in language and manners, that the pass was only be- 
set during the day, and that at night each withdrew to his 
own dwelling, he advance I at the dawn to the heights, as 
if designing openly and by day to force his way through 
the defile. The day then being passed in feigning a dif- 
ferent attempt from that which was in preparation, when 
they had fortified the camp in the same place where they 
had halted, as soon as he perceived that the mountaineers 
had descended from the heights, and that the guards were 
withdrawn, having lighted for show a greater number of 
fires than was proportioned to the number that remained, 
and having left the baggage in the camp, with the cavalry 
and the principal part of the infantry, he himself with a 
party of light-armed, consisting of all the most courageous 
of his troops, rapidly cleared the defile, and took post on 
those very heights which the enemy had occupied. 

33. At dawn of light the next day the camp broke up, 
and the rest of the army began to move forward. The 
mountaineers, on a signal being given, were now assem- 
bling from their forts to their usual station, when they 
suddenly behold part of the enemy overhanging them 
from above, in possession of their former position, and the 
others passing along the road. Both these objects, pre- 
sented at the same time to the eye and the mind, made 
them stand motionless for a little while ; but when they 
afterwards saw the confusion in the pass, and that the 
marching body was thrown into disorder by the tumult 
which itself created, principally from the horses being ter- 
rified, thinking that whatever terror they added would suf- 
fice for the destruction of the enemy, they scramble along 
the dangerous rocks, as being accustomed alike to pathless 
and circuitous ways. Then indeed the Carthaginians were 
opposed at once by the enemy and by the difficulties of the 
ground ; and each striving to escape first from the dan- 
ger, there was more fighting among themselves than with 
their opponents. The horses, in particular, created danger 
in the lines, which, being terrified by the discordant clam- 
ors which the groves and re-echoing valleys augmented, 



t.h. :>34.] 



THE HISTOKY OF ROME. 



41 



fell into confusion ; and if by chance struck or wounded, 
they were so dismayed that they occasioned a great loss 
both of men and baggage of every description : and as the 
pass on both sides was broken and precipitous, this tumult 
threw many down to an immense depth, some even of the 
armed men ; but the beasts of burden, with their loads, 
were rolled down like the fall of some vast fabric. Though 
these disasters were shocking to view, Hannibal, however, 
kept his place for a little, and kept his men together, lest he 
might augment the tumult and disorder ; but afterwards, 
when he saw the line broken, and that there was danger 
that he should bring over his army preserved to no pur- 
pose if deprived of their baggage, he hastened down from 
the higher ground ; and though he had routed the enemy 
by the first onset alone, he at the same time increased the 
disorder in his own army : but that tumult was composed 
in a moment, after the roads were cleared by the flight of 
the mountaineers ; and presently the whole army was con- 
ducted through, not only without being disturbed, but al- 
most in silence. He then took a fortified place, which was 
the capital of that district, and the little villages that lay 
around it, and fed his army for three days with the corn 
and cattle he had taken ; and during these three days, as 
the soldiers were neither obstructed by the mountaineers, 
who had been daunted by the first engagement, nor yet 
much by the ground, he made considerable way. 

34. He then came to another state, abounding, for a 
mountainous country, with inhabitants ; where he was 
nearly overcome, not by open war, but by his own arts of 
treachery and ambuscade. Some old men, governors of 
forts, came as deputies to the Carthaginian, professing, 
" that having been warned by the useful example of the 
calamities of others, they wished rather to experience the 
friendship than the hostilities of the Carthaginians : they 
would, therefore, obediently execute his commands, and 
begged that he would accept of a supply of provisions, 
guides of his march, and hostages for the sincerity of their 
promises." Hannibal, when he had answered them in a 
friendly manner, thinking that they should neither be rash- 
ly trusted nor yet rejected, lest if repulsed they might 
openly become enemies, having received the hostages 



42 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [u. xxi., chap. 35. 



whom they proffered, and made use of the provisions 
which they of their own accord brought down to the road, 
follows their guides, by no means as among a people with 
whom he was at peace, but with his line of march in close 
order. The elephants and cavalry formed the van of the 
marching body ; he himself, examining every thing around, 
and intent on every circumstance, followed with the choic- 
est of the *nfantiy. When they came into a narrower pass, 
lying on one side beneath an overhanging eminence, the 
barbarians, rising at once on all sides from their ambush, 
assail them in front and rear, both at close quarters ands 
from a distance, and roll down huge stones on the army. 
The most numerous body of men pressed on the rear; 
against whom the infantry facing about and directing 
their attack made it very obvious that, had not the rear 
of the army been well supported, a great loss must have 
been sustained in that pass. Even as it was, they came to 
the extremity of danger, and almost to destruction; for 
while Hannibal hesitates to lead down his division into the 
defile, because, though he himself was a protection to the 
cavalry, he had not in the same way left any aid to the in- 
fantry in the rear ; the mountaineers, charging obliquely, 
and on having broken through the middle of the army, 
took possession of the road ; and one night was spent by 
Hannibal without his cavalry and baggage. 

35. Next day, the barbarians running in to the attack 
between (the two divisions) less vigorously, the forces 
were reunited, and the defile passed, not without loss, but 
yet with a greater destruction of beasts of burden than of 
men. From that time the mountaineers fell upon them in 
smaller parties, more like an attack of robbers than war, 
sometimes on the van, sometimes on the rear, according 
as the ground afforded them advantage, or stragglers ad- 
vancing or loitering gave them an opportunity. Though 
the elephants were driven through steep and narrow roads 
with great loss of time, yet wherever they went they ren- 
dered the army safe from the enemy, because men unac- 
quainted with such animals were afraid of approaching 
too nearly. On the ninth day they came to a summit of 
the Alps, chiefly through places trackless ; and after many 
mistakes of their way, which were caused either by the 



y.e. 534.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



43 



treachery of the guides, or, when they were not trusted, 
by entering valleys at random on their own conjectures of 
the route. For two days they remained encamped on the 
summit; and rest was given to the soldiers, exhausted 
with toil and fighting; and several beasts of burden, 
which had fallen down among the rocks, by following the 
track of the army arrived at the camp. A fall of snow, it 
being now the season of the setting of the constellation of 
the Pleiades, caused great fear to the soldiers, already 
worn out with weariness of so many hardships. On the 
standards being moved forward at day-break, when the 
army proceeded slowly over all places entirely blocked up 
with snow, and languor and despair strongly appeared in 
the countenances of all, Hannibal, having advanced before 
the standards, and ordered the soldiers to halt on a cer- 
tain eminence, whence there was a prospect far and wide, 
points out to them Italy and the plains of the Po, extend- 
ing themselves beneath the Alpine mountains ; and said 
"that they were now surmounting not only the ramparts 
of Italy, but also of the city of Rome ; that the rest of the 
journey would be smooth and down-hill ; that after one, 
or, at most, a second battle, they would have the citadel 
and capital of Italy in their power and possession."* The 
army then began to advance, the enemy now making no 
attempts beyond petty thefts, as opportunity offered. But 
the jouraey proved much more difficult than it had been 
in the ascent, as the declivity of the Alps, being generally 
shorter on the side of Italy, is consequently steeper ; for 
nearly all the road was precipitous, narrow, and slippery, 
so that neither those who made the least stumble could 
prevent themselves from falling, nor, when fallen, remain 
in the same place, but rolled, both men and beasts of bur- 
den, one upon another. 

36. They then came to a rock much more narrow, and 
formed of such perpendicular ledges that a light-armed 
soldier, carefully making the attempt, and clinging with 
his hands to the bushes and roots around, could with diffi- 
culty lower himself down. The ground, even before very 
steep by nature, had been broken by a recent falling away 
of the earth into a precipice of nearly a thousand feet in 
I depth. Here when the cavalry had halted, as if at the 



44 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [«. xxi., chap. 37. 



end of their journey, it is announced to Hannibal, wonder- 
ing what obstructed the march, that the rock was impass- 
able. Having then gone himself to view the place, it 
seemed clear to him that he must lead his army round it, 
by however great a circuit, through the pathless and un- 
trodden regions around. But this route also proved im- 
practicable ; for while the new snow of a moderate depth 
remained on the old, which had not been removed, their 
footsteps were planted with ease as they walked upon the 
new snow, which was soft and not too deep ; but when it 
was dissolved by the trampling of so many men and 
beasts of burden, they then walked on the bare ice below, 
and through the dirty fluid formed by the melting snow. 
Here there was a wretched struggle, both on account of 
the slippery ice not affording any hold to the step, and 
giving way beneath the foot more readily by reason of 
the slope; and whether they assisted themselves in rising 
by their hands or their knees, their supports themselves 
giving way, they would tumble again ; nor were there any 
stumps or roots near by pressing against which one might 
with hand or foot support himself ; so that they only 
floundered on the smooth ice and amidst the melted snow. 
The beasts of burden sometimes also cut into this lower 
ice by merely treading upon it, at oth ;rs they broke it 
completely through, by the violence with which they 
struck in their hoofs in their struggling, so that most of 
them, as if taken in a trap, stuck in the hardened and 
deeply frozen ice. 

37. 'At length, after the men and beasts of burden had 
been fatigued to no purpose, the camp was pitched on the 
summit, the ground being cleared for that purpose with 
great difficulty, so much snow was there to be dug out 
and carried away. The soldiers being then set to make a 
way down the cliff, by which alone a passage could be ef- 
fected, and it being necessary that they should cut through 
the rocks, having felled and lopped a number of large 
trees which grew around, they make a huge pile of tim- 
ber ; and as soon as a strong wind fit for exciting the 
flames arose, they set fire to it, and, pouring vinegar on 
the heated stones, they render them soft and crumbling. 
They then open a way with iron instruments through 



y. R. 534. J 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



45 



the rock thus heated by the fire, and soften its declivities 
by gentle windings, so that not only the beasts of burden, 
but also the elephants, could be led down it. Four days 
were spent about this rock, the beasts nearly perishing 
through hunger ; for the summits of the mountains are for 
the most part bare, and if there is any pasture the snows 
bury it. The lower parts contain valleys, and some sunny 
hills, and rivulets flowing beside woods, and scenes more 
wonhy of the abode of man. There the beasts of burden 
were sent out to pasture, and rest given for three days to 
the men, fatigued with forming the passage : they then 
descended into the plains, the country and the dispositions 
of the inhabitants being now less rugged. 

38. In this manner chiefly they came to Italy, in the 
fifth month (as some authors relate) after leaving New 
Carthage, having crossed the Alps in fifteen days. What 
number of forces Hannibal had when he had passed into 
Italy is by no means agreed upon by authors. Those who 
state them at the highest, make mention of a hundred 
thousand foot and twenty thousand horse ; those who 
state them at the lowest, of twenty thousand foot and six 
thousand horse. Lucius Cincius Alimentus, who relates 
that he was made prisoner by Hannibal, would influence 
me most as an authority, did he not confound the number 
by adding the Gauls and Ligurians. Including these (who, 
it is more probable, flocked to him afterwards, and so some 
authors assert), he says that eighty thousand foot and ten 
thousand horse were brought into Italy; and that he had 
heard from Hannibal himself that, after crossing the 
Rhone, he had lost thirty-six thousand men, and an im- 
mense number of horses and other beasts of burden, 
among the Taurini, the next nation to the Gauls, as he de- 
scended into Italy. As this circumstance is agreed on by 
all, I am the more surprised that it should be doubtful by 
what road he crossed the Alps ; and that it should com- 
monly be believed that he passed over the Pennine mount- 
ain, and that thence 1 the name was given to that ridge of 
the Alps. Cceliusssays that he passed over the top of 
Mount Cremo; botb which passes would have brought 
him, not to the Taurini, but through the Salassian mount- 
J From Poenus, Carthaginian. 



4G 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi,, chat. 39. 



aineers to the Libuan Gauls. Neither is it probable that 
these roads into Gaul were then open, especially since 
those whiph lead to the Pennine mountain would have 
been blocked up by nations half German ; nor by Hercules 
(if this argument has weight with any one) do the Vera- 
gri, the inhabitants of this ridge, know of the name being 
given to these mountains from the passage of the Cartha- 
ginians, but from the divinity, whom the mountaineers 
style Penninus, worshipped on the highest summit. 

39. Very opportunely for the commencement of his op- 
erations, a war had broken out with the Taurini, the near- 
est nation, against the Insubrians ; but Hannibal could not 
put his troops under arms to assist either party, as they 
now chiefly felt the disorders they had before contracted in 
remedying them ; for ease after toil, plenty after want, 
and attention to their persons after dirt and filth, had vari- 
ously affected their squalid and almost savage-looking 
bodies. This was the reason that Publius Cornelius, the 
consul, when he had arrived at Pisa with his fleet, hasten- 
ed to the Po, though the troops he received from Manlius 
and Atilius were raw and disheartened by their late dis- 
graces, in order that he might engage the enemy when not 
yet recruited. But when the consul came to Placentia, 
Hannibal had already moved from his quarters, and had 
taken by storm one city of the Taurini, the capital of the 
nation, because they did not come willingly into his alli- 
ance ; and he would have gained over to him, not only 
from fear, but also from inclination, the Gauls who dw<4l 
beside the Po, had not the arrival of the consul suddenly 
checked them while watching for an opportunity of revolt. 
Hannibal at the same time moved from the Taurini, think- 
ing that the Gauls, uncertain which side to choose, would 
follow him if present among them. The armies were now 
almost in sight of each other, and their leaders, though 
not at present sufficiently acquainted, yet met each other 
with a certain feeling of mutual admiration. For the 
name of Hannibal, even before the destruction of Sagun- 
tum, was very celebrated among the Romans ; and Han- 
nibal believed Scipio to be a superior man, from the very 
circumstance of his having been especially chosen to act 
as commander against himself. They had increased, too, 



y.r. 534.] 



THE HISTOKY OF ROME. 



47 



their estimation of each other ; Scipio, because, being left 
behind in Gaul, he had met Hannibal when he had cross- 
ed into Italy ; Hannibal, by his daring attempt of passing 
the Alps and by .its accomplishment. Scipio, however, 
was the first to cross the Po, and having pitched his camp 
at the river Ticinus he delivered the following oration for 
the sake of encouraging his soldiers before he led them 
out ta form for battle : 

40. " If, soldiers, I were leading out that army to bat- 
tle which I had with me in Gaul, I should have thought 
it superfluous to address you ; for of what use would it 
be to exhort either those horsemen who so gloriously van- 
quished the cavalry of the enemy at the river Rhone or 
those legions with whom, pursuing this very enemy flying 
before us, I obtained, in lieu of victory, a confession of 
superiority, shown by his retreat and refusal to fight ? 
Now, because that army, levied for the province of Spain, 
maintains the war under my auspices, 1 and the command 
of my brother Cneius Scipio, in the country where the 
Senate and people of Rome wished him to serve ; and 
since I, that you might have a consul for your leader 
against Hannibal and the Carthaginians, have offered my- 
self voluntarily for this contest, few words are required to 
be addressed from a new commander to soldiers unac- 
quainted with him. That you may not be ignorant of the 
nature of the war nor of the enemy, you have to fight, sol- 
diers, with those whom in the former war you conquered 
both by land and sea ; from whom you have exacted trib- 
ute for twenty years ; from whom you hold Sicily and Sar- 
dinia, taken as the prizes of victory. In the present con- 
test, therefore, you and .they will have those feelings which 
are wont to belong to the victors and the vanquished. 
Nor are they now about to fight because they are daring, 
but because it is unavoidable; except you can believe that 
they who declined the engagement when their forces were 
entire should have now gained more confidence when two- 
thirds of their infantry and cavalry, have been lost in the 
passage of the Alps, and when almost greater numbers 
have perished than survive. Yes, they are few indeed 
(some may say), but they are vigorous in mind and body, 
1 Because Spain was his proper province as consul. 



48 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chap. 41. 



men whose strength and power scarce any force may with- 
stand. On the contrary, they are but the resemblances, 
nay, are rather the shadows of men ; being worn out with 
hunger, cold, dirt, and filth, and bruised and enfeebled 
among stones and rocks. Besides all this, their joints are 
frost-bitten, their sinews stiffened with the snow, their 
limbs withered up by the frost, their armor battered and 
shivered, their horses lame and powerless. With such 
cavalry, with such infantry, you have to fight : you will 
not have enemies in reality, but rather their last remains. 
And I fear nothing more than that when you have fought 
Hannibal, the Alps may appear to have conquered him. 
But perhaps it was fitting that the gods themselves should, 
without any human aid, commence and carry forward a 
war with* a leader and a people that violate the faith of 
treaties ; and that we, who next to the gods have been in- 
jured, should finish the contest thus commenced and near- 
ly completed. 

41. "I do net fear lest any one should think that I say 
this ostentatiously for the sake of encouraging you, while 
in my own mind I am differently affected. I was at liber- 
ty to go w r ith my army into Spain, my own province, 
whither I had already set out; where I should have had 
a brother as the sharer of my councils and my dangers, 
and Hasdrubal instead of Hannibal for my antagonist, and 
without question a less laborious war : nevertheless, as I 
sailed along the coast of Gaul, having landed on hearing 
of this enemy, and having sent forward the cavalry, I 
moved my camp to the Rhone. In a battle of cavalry, 
with which part of my forces the opportunity of engaging 
was afforded, I routed the enemy ; and because I could 
not overtake by land his army of infantry, which was rap- 
idly hurried away, as if in flight, having returned to the 
ships with all the speed I could, after compassing such an 
extent of sea and land, I have met him at the foot of the 
Alps. Whether do I appear, while declining the contest, 
to have fallen in unexpectedly with this dreaded foe, or to 
encounter him in his track? to challenge him, and drag 
him out to decide the contest? I am anxious to try 
whether the earth has suddenly, in these twenty years, 
sent forth a new race of Carthaginians, or whether these 



y.k. 534. J 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



49 



are the same who fought at the islands ..Ega^es, and 
whom you permitted to depart from Eryx, valued at eight- 
een denarii a head ; and whether this Hannibal be, as he 
himself gives out, the rival of the expeditions of Hercules, 
or one left by his father the tributary, and taxed subject 
and slave of the Roman people ; who, did not his guilt at 
Saguntum drive him to frenzy, would certainly reflect, if 
not upon his conquered country, at least on his family, 
and his father, and the treaties written by the hand of 
Hamilcar; who, at the command of our consul, withdrew 
the garrison from Eryx ; who, indignant and grieving, 
submitted to the harsh conditions imposed on the conquer- 
ed Carthaginians ; who agreed to depart from Sicily, and 
pay tribute to the Roman people. I would, therefore, 
have you fight, soldiers, not only with that spirit with 
which you are wont to encounter other enemies, but with 
a certain indignation and resentment, as if you saw your 
slaves suddenly taking up arms against you. We might 
have killed them when shut up in Eryx by hanger, the 
most dreadful of human tortures ; we might have carried 
over our victorious fleet to Africa, and in a few days have 
destroyed Carthage without any opposition. We granted 
pardon to their prayers ; we released them from the block- 
ade; we made peace with them when conquered ; and we 
afterwards considered them under our protection when 
they were oppressed by the African war. In return for 
these benefits, they come under the conduct of a furious 
youth to attack our country. And I wish that the contest 
on your side was for glory, and not for safety : it is not 
about the possession of Sicily and Sardinia, concerning 
which the dispute was formerly, but for Italy, that you 
must fight : nor is there another army behind, which, if 
we should not conquer, can resist the enemy ; nor are 
there other Alps, during the passage of which fresh 
forces may be procured: here, soldiers, we must make 
our stand, as if we fought before the walls of Rome. Let 
every one consider that he defends with his arms not only 
his own person, but his wife and young children : nor let 
him only entertain domestic cares and anxieties, but at the 
same time let him revolve in his mind that the Senate and 
people of Rome now anxiously regard our efforts ; and 



50 



THE HISTORY OF EOME. [b.xxi.,chap.42,43. 



that according as our strength and valor shall be, such 
henceforward will be the fortune of that city and of the 
Roman empire." 

42. Thus the consul addressed the Romans. Hannibal, 
thinking that his soldiers ought to be roused by deeds 
rather than by words, having drawn his army around for 
the spectacle, placed in their midst the captive mountain- 
eers in fetters ; and after Gallic arms had been thrown at 
their feet, he ordered the interpreter to ask " whether any 
among them, on condition of being released from chains, 
and receiving, if victorious, armor and a horse, was willing 
to combat with the sword ?" When they all, to a man, 
demanded the combat and the sword, and lots were cast 
into the urn for that purpose, each wished himself the per- 
son whom fortune might select for the contest. As the 
lot of each man came out, eager and exulting with joy 
amidst the congratulations of his comrades, and dancing, 
after the national custom, he hastily snatched up the 
arms ; but when they fought, such was the state of feel- 
ing, not only among their companions in the same circum- 
stances, but among the spectators in general, that the for- 
tune of those who conquered was not praised more than 
that of those who died bravely. 

43. When he had dismissed the soldiers thus affected, 
after viewing several pairs of combatants, having then 
summoned an assembly, he is said to have addressed them 
in these terms : " If, soldiers, you shall, by-and-by, in judg- 
ing of your own fortune, preserve the same feelings which 
you experienced a little before in the example of the fate 
of others, we have already conquered ; for neither was that 
merely a spectacle, but, as it were, a certain representation 
of your condition. And I know not whether fortune has 
not thrown around you still stronger chains and more ur- 
gent necessities than around your captives. On the right 
and left two seas inclose you, without your possessing a 
single ship even for escape. The river Po around you, 
the Po larger and more impetuous than the Rhone, the 
Alps behind, scarcely passed by you when fresh and vigor- 
ous, hem you in. Here, soldiers, where you have first met 
the enemy, you must conquer or die ; and the same for- 
tune which has imposed the necessity of fighting holds 



y.r. 534.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 51 



out to you, if victorious, rewards, than which men arc not 
wont to desire greater, even from the immortal gods. If 
we were only about to recover by our valor Sicily and 
Sardinia, wrested from our fathers, the recompense would 
be sufficiently ample ; but whatever, acquired and amassed 
by so many triumphs, the Romans possess, all, with its 
masters themselves, will become yours. To gain this rich 
reward, hasten, then, and seize your arms with the favor of 
the gods. Long enough in pursuing cattle among the des- 
ert mountains of Lusitania 1 . and Ceitiberia, you have seen 
no emolument from so many toils and dangers : it is time 
to make rich and profitable campaigns, and to gain the 
great reward of your labors, after having accomplished 
such a length of journey over so many mountains and riv- 
ers, and so many nations in arms. Here Fortune has grant- 
ed you the termination of your labors ; here she will be- 
stow a reward worthy of the service you have undergone. 
Nor, in proportion as the war is great in name, ought you 
to consider that the victory will be difficult. A despised 
enemy has often maintained a sanguinary contest, and re- 
nowned states and kings been conquered by a very slight 
effort. For, setting aside only the splendor of the Roman 
name, what remains in which they can be compared to 
you? To pass over in silence your service for twenty 
years, distinguished by such valor and success, you have 
made your way to this place from the pillars of Hercules, 2 
from the ocean, and the remotest limits of the world, 
advancing victorious through so many of the fiercest 
nations of Gaul and Spain : you will fight with a raw 
army, which this very summer was beaten, conquered, and 
surrounded by the Gauls, as yet unknown to its general, 
and ignorant of him. Shall I compare myself, almost 
born, and certainly bred in the tent of my father, that most 
illustrious commander, myself the subjugator of Spain and 
Gaul, the conqueror, too, not only of the Alpine nations, but 
what is much more, of the Alps themselves, with this six 
months' general, the deserter of his army ? To whom, if 

1 The ancient name of Portugal. 

2 Calpe, a mountain or rather rook in Spain, nd Abyla in Africa, 
fabled have been placed by Hercules as marks cf his most distant voy- 
age, are now -well known as Gibraltar and Ceuta. 



52 



THE HISTOKY OF HOME. [b. xxi.,chap. 44. 



any one, having taken away their standards, should show 
to-day the Carthaginians and Romans, I am sure that he 
w r ould not know of which army he was consul. I do not 
regard it, soldiers, as of small account, that there is not 
a man among you before whose eyes I have not often 
achieved some military exploit ; and to whom, in like man- 
ner, I, the spectator and witness of his valor, could not re- 
count his own gallant deeds, particularized by time and 
place. With soldiers who have a thousand times received 
my praises and gifts, I, who was the pupil of you all before 
I became your commander, will march out in battle-array 
against those who are unknown to and ignorant of each 
other. 

44. " On whatever side I turn my eyes, I see nothing 
but what is full of courage and energy ; a veteran infan- 
try ; cavalry, both those with and those without the bridle, 
composed of Jhe most gallant nations, you our most faith- 
ful and valiant allies, you Carthaginians, who are about 
to fight as well for the sake of your country as from the 
justest resentment. We are the assailants in the war, and 
descend into Italy with hostile standards, about to engage 
so much more boldly and bravely than the foe, as the con- 
fidence and courage of the assailant are greater than those 
of him who is defensive. Besides suffering, injury and in- 
dignity inflame and excite our minds : they first demand- 
ed me, your leader, for punishment, and then all of you who 
had laid siege to Saguntum ; and had we been given up 
they would have visited us with the severest tortures. 
That most cruel and haughty nation considers every thing 
its own, and at its own disposal ; it thinks it right that it 
should regulate with whom we are to have war, with whom 
peace : it circumscribes and shuts us up by the boundaries 
of mountains and rivers, which we must not pass, and then 
does not adhere to those boundaries which it appointed. 
Pass not the Iberus ; have nothing to do with the Sagun- 
tines. Saguntum is on the Iberus; you must not move a 
step in any direction. Is it a small thing that you take 
away my most ancient provinces, Sicily and Sardinia ? will 
you take Spain also ? and should I withdraw thence, you 
will cross over into Africa — will cross, did I say ? they 
have sent the two consuls of this year one to Africa, the 



T.R, 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF HOME. 



53 



other to Spain : there is nothing left to us in any quarter, 
except what we can assert to ourselves by arms. Those 
may be cowards and dastards who have something to look 
back upon ; whom, flying through safe and unmolested 
roads, their own lands and their own country will receive ; 
there is a necessity for you to be brave ; and since all be- 
tween victory and death is broken off from you by inevi- 
table despair, either to conquer, or, if fortune should waver, 
to meet death rather in battle than flight. If this be well 
fixed and determined in the minds of you all, I will repeat, 
you have already conquered : no stronger incentive to vic- 
tory has been given to man by the immortal gods." 

45. When the minds of the soldiers on both sides had 
been animated to the contest, by these exhortations, the 
Romans throw a bridge over the Ticinus, and, for the sake 
of defending the bridge, erect a fort on it. The Cartha- 
ginian, while the Romans were engaged in this work, sends 
Maharbal with a squadron of five hundred Numidian 
horse, to lay waste the territories of the allies of the Ro- 
man people. He orders that the Gauls should be spared 
as much as possible, and the minds of their chiefs be insti- 
gated to a revolt. When the bridge was finished/the Ro- 
man army being led across into the territory of the Insu- 
brians, took up its station five miles from Victumvia?. At 
this place Hannibal lay encamped ; and having quickly re- 
called Maharbal and the cavalry, when he perceived that 
a battle was approaching, thinking that in exhorting the 
soldiers enough could never be. spoken or addressed by 
way of admonition, he announces to them, when summon- 
ed to an assembly, stated rewards, in expectation of which 
they might fight. He promised " that he would give 
them land in Italy, Africa, Spain, where each man might 
choose, exempt from all burdens to the person who re- 
ceived it, and to- his children: if any one preferred money 
to land, he would satisfy him in silver ; if any of the allies 
wished to become citizens of Carthage, he would grant 
them permission ; if others chose rather to return home, 
he would lend his endeavors that they should not wish 
the situation of any one of their countrymen exchanged 
for their own." To the slaves, also, who followed their 
masters he promised freedom, and that he would give 



54 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chap. 46. 



two slaves in place of each of them to their masters. 
And that they might know that these promises were cer- 
tain, holding in his left hand a lamb, and in his right a 
flint, having prayed to Jupiter and the other gods that, if 
he was false to his word, they would thus slay him as he 
slew the lamb ; after the prayer he broke the skull of the 
sheep with a stone. Then in truth all, receiving as it were 
the gods as sureties, each for the fulfillment of his own 
hopes, and thinking that the only delay in obtaining the 
object of their wishes arose from their not yet being en- 
gaged, with one mind and one voice demanded the battle. 

46. By no means so great an alacrity prevailed among 
the Romans, who, in addition to other causes, were also 
alarmed by recent prodigies ; lor both a wolf had entered 
the camp, and, having torn those who met him, had escaped 
unhurt ; and a swarm of bees had settled on a tree over- 
hanging the general's tent. After these prodigies were 
expiated, Scipio, having set out with his cavalry and light- 
armed spearmen towards the camp of the enemy, to ob- 
serve from a near point their forces, how numerous, and of 
what description they "were, falls in w r ith Hannibal, who 
had himself also advanced with his cavalry to explore the 
circumjacent country : neither at first perceived the other, 
but the dust arising from the trampling of so many men 
and horses soon gave the signal of approaching enemies. 
Both armies halted, and were preparing themselves for 
battle. Scipio places his spearmen and Gallic cavalry in 
front ; the Romans and what force of allies he had with 
him in reserve. Hannibal receives the horsemen who rode 
with the rein in the centre, and strengthens his wings with 
!N"umidians. "When the shout was scarcely raised, the 
spearmen fled among the reserve to the second line : there 
was then a contest of the cavalry, for some time doubtful ; 
but afterwards, on account of the foot-soldiers, who were 
intermingled, causing confusion among the horses, many of 
the riders falling oft from their horses, or leaping down 
where they saw their friends surrounded and hard pressed, 
vhe battle for the most part came to be fought on foot ; 
until the Numidians, who were in the wings, having made 
a small circuit, showed themselves on the rear. That 
alarm dismayed the Romans, and the wound of the consul, 



y.r. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME, 



55 



and the danger to his life, warded off by the interposition 
of his son, then just arriving at the age of puberty, aug- 
mented their fears. This youth will be found to be the 
same to whom the glory of finishing this war belongs, and 
to whom the name of Africanus was given, on account of 
his splendid victory over Hannibal and the Carthaginians. 
The flight, however, of the spearmen, whom the Xumidi- 
ans attacked first, was the most disorderly. The rest of 
the cavalry, in a close body, protecting, not only with their 
arms, but also with their bodies, the consul, whom they 
had received into the midst of them, brought him back to 
the camp without anywhere giving way in disorder or pre- 
cipitation. Coeiius attributes the honor of saving the con- 
sul to a slave, by nation a Ligurian. I indeed should rath- 
er wish that the account about the son was true, which 
also most authors have transmitted, and the report of 
which has generally obtained credit. 

47. This was the first battle with Hannibal; from 
which it clearly appeared that the Carthaginian was supe- 
rior in cavalry; and on that account, that open plains, such 
as lie between the Po and the Alps, were not suited to the 
Romans for carrying on the war. On the following night, 
therefore, the soldiers being ordered to prepare their bag- 
gage in silence, the camp broke up from the Ticinus, and 
they hastened to the Po, in order that the rafts by which 
the consul had formed a bridge over the river, being not 
yet loosened, he might lead his forces across without dis- 
turbance or pursuit of the enemy. They arrived at Pla- 
centia before Hannibal had ascertained that they hod set 
out from the Ticinus. He took, however, six hundred of 
those who loitered on the farther bank, who were slowly 
unfastening the raft ; but he was not able to pass the 
bridge, as the whole raft floated down the stream as soon 
as the ends were unfastened. Ccelius relates that Mago, 
with the cavalry and Spanish infantry, immediately swam 
the river ; and that Hannibal himself led the army across 
by fords higher up the Po, the elephants being opposed to 
the stream in a line to break the force of the current. 
These accounts can scarcely gain credit with those who 
are acquainted with that river ; for it is neither probable 
that the cavalry could bear up against the great violence 



50 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chap. 48. 



of the stream, without losing their arras or horses, even 
supposing that inflated bags of leather had transported all 
the Spaniards ; and the fords of the Po, by which an army 
encumbered with baggage could pass, must have been 
sought by a circuit of many days' march. Those authors 
are more credited by me, who relate that in the course of 
two days a place was with difficulty found fit for forming 
a bridge of rafts across the river, and that by this way the 
light-armed Spanish cavalry was sent forward with Mago. 
While Hannibal, delaying beside the river to give audi- 
ence to the embassies of the Gauls, conveys over the 
heavy-armed forces of infantry, in the mean time Mago 
and the cavalry proceed towards the enemy at Placentia 
one day's journey after crossing the river. Hannibal, a 
few days alter, fortified his camp six miles from Placentia, 
and on the following day, having drawn up his line of bat- 
tle in sight of the enemy, gave them an opportunity of 
fi^htin^. 

48. On the following night a slaughter was made in the 
Roman camp by the auxiliary Gauls, which appeared 
greater from the tumult than it proved in reality. Two 
thousand infantry and two hundred horse, having killed 
the guards at the gates, desert to Hannibal ; whom the 
Carthaginians having addressed kindly, and excited by the 
hope of great, rewards, sent each to several states to gain 
over the minds of their countrymen. Scipio, thinking 
that that slaughter was a signal for the revolt of all the 
Gauls, and that, contaminated with the guilt of that affair, 
they would rush to arms as if a frenzy had been sent 
among them, though he was still suffering severely from 
his wound, yet setting out for the river Trebia at the 
fourth watch of the following night with his army in 
silence, he removes his camp to higher ground, and hills 
more embarrassing to the cavalry. He escaped observa- 
tion less than at the Ticinus ; and Hannibal, having dis- 
patched first the Numidians and then all the cavalry, 
would have thrown the rear at least into great confusion, 
had not the Xumidians, through anxiety for booty, turned 
aside into the deserted Roman camp. There while, close- 
ly examining every part of the camp, they waste time, 
with no sufficient reward for the delay, the enemy escaped 



t.b. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



out of their hands ; and when they saw the Romans al- 
ready across the Trebia, and measuring out their camp, 
they kill a few of the loiterers intercepted on that side of 
the river. Scipio, being unable to endure any longer the 
irritation of his wound, caused by the roughness of the 
road, and thinking that he ought to wait for his colleague 
(for he had now heard that he was recalled from Sicily), 
fortified a space of chosen ground, which, adjoining the 
river, seemed safest for a stationary camp. When Hanni- 
bal had encamped not far from thence, being as much 
elated with the victory of his cavalry as anxious on ac- 
count of the scarcity which every day assailed him more 
severely, marching as he did through the territory of the 
enemy, and supplies being nowhere provided, he sends to 
the village of Clastidium, where the Romans had collected 
a great stock of corn. There, while they were preparing 
for an assault, a hope of the town being betrayed to them 
was held out : Dasius, a Brundusian, the governor of the 
garrison, having been corrupted for four hundred pieces of 
gold (no great bribe truly), Clastidium is surrendered to 
Hannibal. It served as a granary for the Carthaginians 
while they lay at the Trebia. Xo cruelty was used to- 
wards the prisoners of the surrendered garrison, in order 
that a character for clemency might be acquired at the 
commencement of his proceedings. 

49. While the war by land was at a stand beside the 
Trebia, in the mean time operations went on by land and 
sea around Sicily and the islands adjacent to Italy, both 
under Sempronius the consul, and before his arrival. 
Twenty quinqueremes, with a thousand armed men, hav- 
ing been sent by the Carthaginians to lay waste the coast 
of Italy, nine" reached the Lipara?, eight the island of Vul- 
can, and three the tide drove into the strait. On these be- 
ing seen from Messana, twelve ships sent out by Hiero, 
king of Syracuse, who then happened to be at Messana, 
waiting for the Roman consul, brought back into the port 
of Messana the ships taken ' without any resistance. It 
was discovered from the prisoners that, besides the twen- 
ty ships, to which fleet they belonged, and which had been 
dispatched against Italy, thirty-five other quinqueremes 
were directing their course to Sicily, in order to gain over 



58 



THE HISTORY OF HOME. [b. xxi., chap. 50. 



their ancient allies : that their main object was to gain 
possession of Lilyboeum, and they believed that that Sect 
had been driven to the islands iEgates by the same storm 
by which they themselves had been dispersed. The king 
writes these tidings, according as they had been received, 
to Marcus ^Emilius the praetor, whose province Sicily was, 
and advises him to occupy Lilybaeum with a strong garri- 
son. Immediately the lieutenants, generals, and tribunes, 
with the praetor, were dispatched to the different states, in 
order that they might keep their men on vigilant guard ; 
above all things, it was commanded that Lilybaeum should 
be secured : an edict having been put forth that, in addi- 
tion to such warlike preparations, the crews should carry 
down to their ships dressed provisions for ten days, so 
that no one, when the signal was given, might delay in em- 
barking ; and that those who were stationed along the 
whole coast should look out from their watch-towers for 
the approaching fleet of the enemy. The Carthaginians, 
therefore, though they had purposely slackened the course 
of their ships, so that they might reach Lilybaeum just be- 
fore day-break, were descried before their arrival, because 
both the moon shone all night and they came with their 
sails set up. Immediately the signal was given from the 
w r atch-towers, and the summons to arms was shouted 
through the town, and they embarked in the ships : part 
of the soldiers were left on the walls and at the stations of 
the gates, and part went on board the fleet. The Cartha- 
ginians, because they perceived that they would not have 
to do with an unprepared enemy, kept back from the har- 
bor till daylight, that interval being spent in taking down 
their rigging and getting ready the fleet for action. 
When the light appeared, they withdrew their fleet into 
the open sea, that there might be room for the battle, and 
that the ships of the enemy might have a free egress from 
the harbor. Nor did the Romans decline the conflict, be- 
ing emboldened both by the recollection of the exploits 
they had performed near that very spot, and by the num- 
bers and valor of their soldiers. 

50. When they had advanced into the open sea, the Ro- 
mans w r ished to come to close fight, and to make a trial of 
strength hand to hand. The Carthaginians, on the con- 



y.r. 534.] 



THE HI5T0KY OF HOME. 



59 



trary, eluded them, and sought to maintain the fight by 
art, not by force, and to make it a battle of ships rather 
than of men and arms ; for though they had their fleet 
abundantly supplied with mariners, yet it was deficient in 
soldiers ; and when a ship was grappled, a very unequal 
number of armed men fought on board of it. When this 
was observed, their numbers increased the courage of the 
Romans, and their inferiority of force diminished that of 
the others. Seven Carthaginian ships were immediately 
surrounded ; the rest took to flight : one thousand seven 
hundred soldiers and mariners were captured in the ships, 
and among them were three noble Carthaginians. The 
Romar fleet returned without loss to the harbor, only one 
ship being pierced, and even that also brought back into 
port. After this engagement, before those at Messana 
were aware of its occurrence,, Titus Sempronius, the consul, 
arrived at Messana. As he entered the strait, King Hiero 
led out a fleet fully equipped to meet him; and having 
passed from the royal ship into that of the general, he con- 
gratulated him on having arrived safe with his army and 
fleet, and prayed that his expedition to Sicily might be 
prosperous and successful. He then laid before him the 
state of the island and the designs of the Carthaginians, 
and promised that, with the same spirit with which he had 
in his youth assisted the Romans during the former war, 
he would now assist them in his old age ; that he would 
gratuitously furnish supplies of corn and clothing to the 
legions and naval crews of the consul; adding, that great 
danger threatened Lilybaeurn and the maritime states, and 
that a change of affairs would be acceptable to some of 
them. For these reasons it appeared to the consul that 
he ought to make no delay, but to repair to Lilybaeurn 
with his fleet. The king and the royal squadron set out 
along with him, and on their passage they heard that a 
battle had been fought at Lilybaeurn, and that the enemy's 
ships had been scattered and taken. 

51. The consul having dismissed Hiero with the royal 
fleet, and left the praetor to defend the coast of Sicily, 
passed over himself from Lilybaeurn to the island Melita, 
which was held in possession by the Carthaginians. On 
his arrival, Hamilcar, the son of Gisgo, the commander of 



60 



THE HISTORY OF HOME. [n. xxi., chai>. 52. 



the garrison, with little less than two thousand soldiers, 
together with the town and the island, are delivered up to 
him : thence, after a few days, he returned to Lilyboeum ; 
and the prisoners taken, both by the consul and the praetor, 
excepting those illustrious for their rank, were publicly 
sold. When the consul considered that Sicily was suffi- 
ciently safe on that side, he crossed over to the island of 
Vulcan, because there was a report that the Carthaginian 
fleet was stationed there ; but not one of the enemy was 
discovered about those islands. They had already, as it 
happened, passed over to ravage the coast of Italy, and, 
having laid waste the territory of Vibo, were also threat- 
ening the city. The descent made by the enemy on the 
Vibonensian territory is announced to the consul as he 
was returning to Sicily : and letters were delivered to him 
which had been sent by the Senate, about the passage of 
Hannibal into Italy, commanding him, as soon as possible, 
to bring assistance to his colleague. Perplexed with hav- 
ing so many anxieties at once, he immediately sent his 
army, embarked in the fleet, by the upper sea to Arimi- 
num ; he assigned the defense of the territory of Vibo, and 
the sea-coast of Italy, to Sextus Pomponius, his lieutenant- 
general, with twenty-five ships of war : he made up a fleet 
of fifty ships for Marcus ^Emiiius, the praetor ; and he him- 
self, after the affairs of Sicily were settled, sailing close 
along the coast of Italy with ten ships, arrived at Arimi- 
num, whence, setting out with his army for the river Trc- 
bia, he joined his colleague. 

52. Both the consuls and all the strength of Rome be- 
ing now opposed to Hannibal, made it sufficiently obvious 
that the Roman empire could either be defended by those 
forces, or that there was no other hope left. Yet the one 
consul, being dispirited by the battle of the cavalry and 
his own wound, wished operations to be deferred: the 
other, having his spirits unsubdued, and being therefore 
the more impetuous, admitted no delay. The tract of 
country between the Trebia and the Po was then inhabit- 
ed by the Gauls, who, in this contest of two very powerful 
states, by a doubtful neutrality, were evidently looking for- 
ward to the favor of the conqueror. The Romans submit- 
ted to this conduct of the Gauls with tolerable satisfac- 



Y.R. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



61 



tion, provided they did not take any active part at all ; but 
the Carthaginian bore it with great discontent, giving out 
that he had come invited by the Gauls to set them at lib- 
erty. On account of that resentment, and in order that he 
might at the same time maintain his troops from the plun- 
der, he ordered two thousand foot and a thousand horse, 
chiefly Numidians, with some Gauls intermixed, to lay 
waste all the country straightforward as far as the banks 
of the Po. The Gauls, being in want of assistance, though 
they had up to this time kept their inclinations doubtful, 
are forced by the authors of the injury to turn to some 
who would be their supporters ; and having sent ambassa- 
dors to the consul, they implore the aid of the Romans in 
behalf of a country which was suffering for the too great 
fidelity of its inhabitants to the Romans. Neither the 
cause nor the time of pleading it was satisfactory to Cor- 
nelius ; and the nation was suspected by him, both on ac- 
count of many treacherous actions, and, though others 
might have been forgotten through length of time, on ac- 
count of the recent perfidy of the Boii. Sempronius, on 
the contrary, thought that it would be the strongest tie 
upon the fidelity of the allies if those were defended who 
first required support. Then, while his colleague hesi- 
tated, he sends his own cavalry, with about a thousand 
spearmen on foot in their company, to protect the Gallic 
territory beyond the Trebia. These, when they had unex- 
pectedly attacked the enemy while scattered and disorder- 
ed, and for the most part encumbered with booty, caused 
great terror, slaughter, and flight, even as far as the camp 
and outposts of the enemy ; whence being repulsed by the 
numbers that poured out, they again' renewed the fight 
with the assistance of their own party. Then pursuing 
and retreating in doubtful battle, though they left it at last 
equal, yet the fame of the victory was more with the Ro- 
mans than the enemy. 

53. But to no one did it appear more important and just 
than to the consul himself, lie was transported with joy 
" that he had conquered with that part of the forces with 
which the other consul had been defeated ; that the spirits 
of the soldiers were restored and revived ; that there was 
no one, except his colleague, who would wish an engage- 



62 



THE HISTORY OF ROME, [a xxi., chap. 53. 



ment delayed; and that he, -suffering more from disease of 
mind than body, shuddered, through recollection of his 
wound, at arms and battle. But others ought not to sink 
into decrepitude together with a sick man. For why 
should there be any longer protraction or waste of time ? 
What third consul, what other army did they wait for ? 
The camp of the Carthaginians was in Italy, and almost 
in sight of the city. It was not Sicily and Sardinia, which 
had been taken from them when vanquished, nor Spain on 
this side of the Iberus, that was their object, but that the 
Romans should be driven from the land of their fathers, 
and the soil in which they were born. How deeply," he 
continued, " would our fathers groan, who were wont to 
wage war around the walls of Carthage, if they should see 
us their offspring, two consuls and two consular armies, 
trembling within our camps in the heart of Italy, while a 
Carthaginian had made himself master of all the country 
between the Alps and the Apennine !" Such discourses 
did he hold while sitting beside his sick colleague, and also 
at the head-quarters, almost in the manner of an harangue. 
The approaching period of the elections also stimulated 
him, lest the war should be protracted till the new consuls 
were chosen, and the opportunity of turning all the glory 
to himself, while his colleague lay sick. He orders the 
soldiers, therefore, Cornelius in vain attempting to dis- 
suade him, to get ready for an immediate engagement. 
Hannibal, as he saw what conduct would be best for the 
enemy, had scarce at first any hope that the consuls would 
do any thing rashly or imprudently, but when he discover- 
ed that the disposition of the one, first known from report, 
and afterwards from experience, was ardent and impetuous, 
and believed that it had been rendered still more impetuous 
by the successful engagement with his predatory troops, 
he did not doubt that an opportunity of action was near 
at hand. He was anxious and watchful not to omit this 
opportunity, while the troops of the enemy were raw, while 
his wound rendered the better of the two commanders 
useless, and while the spirits of the Gauls were fresh ; of 
whom he knew that a great number would follow him 
with the greater reluctance the farther they were drawn 
away from home. When, for these and similar reasons, 



t.b. 534.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



he hoped that an engagement was near, and desired to 
make the attack himself, if there should be any delay ; and 
when the Gauls, who were the safer spies to ascertain what 
he wished, as they served in both camps, had brought in- 
telligence that the Romans were prepared for battle, the 
Carthaginian began to look about for a place for an am- 
buscade. 

54. Between the armies was a rivulet, bordered on each 
side with very high banks, and covered around with 
marshy plants, and with the brush-wood and brambles with 
which uncultivated places are generally overspread ; and 
when, riding around it, he had,- with his own eyes, thor- 
oughly reconnoitred a place which was sufficient to afford 
a covert even for cavalry, he said to Mago, his brother : 
" This will be the place which you must occupy. Choose 
out of all the infantry and cavalry a hundred men of each, 
with whom come to me at the first watch. Now is the 
time to refresh their bodies." The council was thus dis- 
missed, and in a little time Mago came forward with his 
chosen men. " I see," said Hannibal, "the strength of the 
men ; but that you may be strong not only in resolution, 
but also in number, pick out each from the troops and 
companies nine men like yourselves : Mago will show you 
the place where you are to lie in ambush. You will have 
an enemy who is blind to these arts of war." A thousand 
horse and a thousand foot, under the command of Mago, 
having been thus sent off, Hannibal orders the Numidian 
cavalry to ride up, after crossing the river Trebia by break 
of day, to the gates of the enemy, and to draw them out 
to a battle by discharging their javelins at the guards; 
and then, when the fight was commenced, by retiring slow- 
ly to decoy them across the river. These instructions 
were given to the Numidians : to the other leaders of the 
infantry and cavalry it was commanded that they should 
order all their men to dine ; and then, under arms and 
with their horses equipped, to await the signal. Sempro- 
nius, eager for the contest, led out, on the first tumult 
raised by the Numidians, all the cavalry, being full of con- 
fidence in that part of the forces ; then six thousand infan- 
try, and, lastly, all his army, to the place already determined 
in his plan. It happened to be the winter season and a 



64 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chap. 55. 



snowy day, in the region which lies between the Alps and 
the Apennine, and excessively cold by the proximity of riv- 
ers and marshes : besides, there was no heat in the bodies 
of the men and horses thus hastily led out without having 
first taken food, or employed any means to keep off the 
cold ; and the nearer they approached to the blasts from 
the river, a keener degree of cold blew upon them. But 
when, in pursuit of the flying Numidians, they entered the 
water (and it was swollen by rain in the night as high as 
their breasts), then in truth the bodies of all, on landing, 
were so benumbed, that they were scarcely able to hold 
their arms ; and as the day advanced they began to grow 
faint, both from fatigue and hunger. 

55. In the mean time the soldiers of Hannibal, fires hav- 
ing been kindled before the tents, and oil sent through the 
companies to soften their limbs, and their food having 
been taken at leisure, as soon as it was announced that the 
enemy had passed the river, seized their arms with vigor 
of mind and body, and advanced to the battle. Hannibal 
placed before the standards the Baliares and the light-arm- 
ed troops, to the amount of nearly eight thousand men; 
then the heavier-armed infantry, the chief of his power and 
strength : on the wings he posted ten thousand horse, and 
on their extremities stationed the elephants divided into 
two parts. The consul placed on the flanks of his infantry 
the cavalry, recalled by the signal for retreat, as in their 
irregular pursuit of the enemy they were checked, while 
unprepared, by the Numidians suddenly turning upon 
them. There were of ^ntry eighteen thousand Romans, 
twenty thousand allies of the Latin name, besides the aux- 
iliary forces of the Cenomani, the only Gallic nation that 
had remained faithful: with these forces they engaged 
the enemy. The battle was commenced by the Baliares, 
whom when the legions resisted with superior force, the 
light-armed troops were hastily drawn off to the wings ; 
wnich movement caused the Roman cavalry to be immedi- 
ately overpowered : for, when their four thousand already 
with difficulty withstood by themselves ten thousand of the 
enemy, the wearied, against men for the most part fresh, 
they were overwhelmed in addition by a cloud, as it were, 
of javelins discharged by the Baliares ; and the elephants 



r. R. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



65 



besides, which held a prominent position at the extremities 
of the wings (the horses being greatly terrified not only at 
their appearance, but their unusual smell), occasioned flight 
to a wide extent. The battle between the infantry was 
equal rather in courage than strength ; for the Carthagin- 
ian brought the latter entire to the action, having a little 
before refreshed themselves, while, on the contrary, the 
bodies of the Romans, suffering from fasting and fatigue, 
and stiff with cold, were quite benumbed. They would 
.have made a stand, however, by dint of courage, if they 
had only had to fight with the infantry. But both the Ba- 
liares, having beaten off the cavalry, poured darts on their 
flanks, and the elephants had already penetrated to the 
centre of the line of the infantry ; while Mago and the 
INTumidians, as soon as the army had passed their place of 
ambush without observing them, starting up on their rear, 
occasioned great disorder and alarm. Nevertheless, amidst 
so many surrounding dangers, the line for some time re- 
mained unbroken, and, most contrary to the expectation of 
all, against the elephants. These the light-infantry, posted 
for the purpose, turned back by throwing their spears ; 
and, following them up when turned, pierced them under 
the tail, where they received the wounds in the softest 
skin. 

56. Hannibal ordered the elephants, thus thrown into 
disorder, and almost driven by their terror against their 
own party, to be led away from the centre of the line to 
its extremity against the auxiliary Gauls on the left wing. 
In an instant they occasioned unequivocal flight ; and a 
new alarm was added to the Romans when they saw their 
auxiliaries routed. About ten thousand men, therefore, 
as they now were fighting in a circle, the others being un- 
able to escape, broke through the middle of the line of the 
Africans, which was supported by the Gallic auxiliaries, 
with immense slaughter of the enemy ; and since they 
neither could return to the camp, being shut out by the 
river, nor, on account of the heavy rain, satisfactorily de- 
termine in what part they should assist their friends, they 
proceeded by the direct road to Placentia. After this 
several irruptions were made in all directions ; and those 
who sought the river were either swallowed up in its 



66 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chap. 57. 



eddies, or while they hesitated to enter it were cut off 
by the enemy. Some, who had been scattered abroad 
through the country in their flight, by following the 
traces of the retreating army, arrived at Placentia ; others, 
whom the fear of the enemy inspired with boldness to en- 
ter the river, having crossed it, reached the camp. The 
rain mixed with snow, and the intolerable severity of the 
cold, destroyed many men and beasts of burden, and al- 
most all the elephants. The river Trebia was the termi- 
nation of the Carthaginians' pursuit of the enemy; and 
they returned to the camp so benumbed with cold, that 
they could scarcely feel joy for the victory. On the fol- 
lowing night, therefore, though the guard of the camp 
and the principal part of the soldiers that remained pass- 
ed the Trebia on rafts, they either did not perceive it, on 
account of the beating of the rain, or being unable to be- 
stir themselves, through their fatigue and wounds, pre- 
tended that they did not perceive it ; and the Carthagin- 
ians remaining quiet, the army was silently led by the 
consul Scipio* to Placentia, thence transported across the 
Po to Cremona, lest one colony should be too much bur- 
dened by the winter-quarters of two armies. 

57. Such terror, on account of this disaster, was carried 
to Rome, that they believed that the enemy was already 
approaching the city with hostile standards, and that they 
had neither hope nor aid by which they might repel his 
attack from the gates and walls. One consul having been 
defeated at the Ticinus, the other having been recalled 
from Sicily, and now both consuls and their two consular 
armies having been vanquished, what other commanders, 
what other legions were there to be sent for ? The consul 
Sempronius came to them while thus dismayed, having 
passed at great risk through the cavalry of the enemy, 
scattered in every direction in search of plunder, with 
courage, rather than with any plan or hope of escaping, or 
of making resistance if he should not escape it. Having 
held the assembly for the election of the consuls, the only 
thing which was particularly wanting at present, he re- 
turned to the winter-quarters. Cneius Servilius and Caius 
Flaminius were elected consuls. But not even the winter- 
quarters of the Romans were undisturbed, the Nuraidian 



y.k. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



67 



horse ranging at large, and where the ground was im- 
practicable for these, the Celtiberians and Lusitanians. 
All supplies, therefore, from every quarter were cut off, 
except such as the ships conveyed by the Po. There was 
a magazine near Placentia, both fortified with great care 
and secured by a strong garrison. In the hope of taking 
this fort, Hannibal, having set out with the cavalry and the 
light-armed horse, and having attacked it by night, as he 
rested his main hope of effecting his enterprise on keeping 
it concealed, did not escape the notice of the guards. 
Such a clamor was immediately raised that it was heard 
even at Placentia. The consul, therefore, came up with 
the cavalry about day-break, having commanded the le- 
gions to follow in a square band. In the mean time an 
engagement of cavalry commenced, in which, the enemy 
being dismayed because Hannibal retired wounded from 
the fight, the fortress was admirably defended. After 
this, having taken rest for a few days, and before his 
wound was hardly as yet sufficiently healed, he sets out to 
lay siege to Victumvia?. This magazine had been forti- 
fied by the Romans in the Gallic war ; afterwards a mix- 
ture of inhabitants from the neighboring states around 
had made the place populous ; and at this time the terror 
created by the devastation of the enemy had driven to- 
gether to it numbers from the country. A multitude of 
this description, excited by the report of the brave defense 
of the fortress near Placentia, having snatched up their 
arms, went out to meet Hannibal. They engaged on the 
road rather like armies in order of march than in line of 
battle ; and since on the one side there was nothing but a 
disorderly crowd, and on the other a general confident in 
his soldiers, and soldiers in their general, as many as 
thirty-five thousand men were routed by a few. On the 
following day, a surrender having been made, they re- 
ceived, a garrison within their wails; and being ordered 
to deliver up their arms, as soon as they had obeyed the 
command, a signal is suddenly given to the victors to pil- 
lage the city, as if it had been taken by storm ; nor was 
any outrage, which in such cases is wont to appear to 
writers worthy of relation, left unperpetrated ; such a spec- 
imen of every kind of lust, barbarity, and inhuman inso- 



68 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi,, chap. 58. 



lence was exhibited towards that unhappy people. Such 
were the expeditions of Hannibal during the winter. 

58. For a short time after, while the cold continued in- 
tolerable, rest was given to the soldiers : and having set 
out from his winter-quarters on the first and uncertain in- 
dications of spring, he leads them into Etruria, intending 
to gain that nation to his J side, like the Gauls and Liguri- 
ans, either by force or favor. As he was crossing the Ap- 
ennines, so furious a storm attacked him, that it almost 
surpassed the horrors of the Alps. When the rain and 
wind together were driven directly against their faces, they 
at first halted, because their arms must either be cast 
away, or, striving to advance against the storm, they were 
whirled round by the hurricane, and dashed to the ground : 
afterwards, when it now stopped their breath, nor suffered 
them to respire, they sat down for a little, with their backs 
to the wind. Then, indeed, the sky resounded with loud 
thunder, and the lightnings flashed between its terrific 
peals ; all, bereft of sight and hearing, stood torpid with 
fear. At length, when the rain had spent itself, and the 
fury of the wind was on that account the more increased, 
it seemed necessary to pitch the camp in that very place 
where they had been overtaken by the storm. But this 
was the beginning of their labors, as it were, afresh ; for 
neither could they spread out nor fix any tent, nor did that 
which perchance had been put up remain, the wind tearing 
through and sweeping every thing away : and soon after, 
when the water raised aloft by the wind had been frozen 
above the cold summits of the mountains, it poured down 
such a torrent of snowy hail, that the men, casting away 
every thing, fell down upon their faces, rather buried un- 
der than sheltered by their coverings ; and so extreme an 
intensity of cold succeeded, that when each wished to raise 
and lift himself from that wretched heap of men and beasts 
of burden, he was for a long time unable, because, their 
sinews being stiffened by the cold, they had great difficul- 
ty in bending their joints. Afterwards, when, by continu- 
ally moving themselves to and fro, they succeeded in re- 
covering the power of motion, and regained their spirits, 
and fires began to be kindled in a few places, every help- 
less man had recourse to the aid of others. They remain- 



y.r. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



69 



ed as if blockaded for two days in that place. Many men 
and beasts of burden, and also seven elephants, of those 
which had remained from the battle fought at the Trebia, 
were destroyed. 

59. Having descended from the Apennines, he moved 
his camp back towards Placentia, and, having proceeded 
as far as ten miles, took up his station. On the following 
day he leads out twelve thousand infantry and five thou- 
sand cavalry against the enemy. Xor did Sempronius the 
consul (for he had now returned from Rome) decline the 
engagement ; and during that day three miles intervened 
between the two camps. On the following day they f ought 
with amazing courage and various success. At th firs^ 
onset the Roman- power was so superior, that the n<- 
only conquered the enemy in the regular battle, but pi r- 
sued them, when driven back, quite into their camp, id 
soon after also assaulted it. Hannibal, having stationt . a 
few to defend the rampart and the gates, and having d- 
mitted the rest in close array into the middle of the ca p, 
orders them to watch attentively the signal for sally » 
out. It was now about the ninth hour of the day, wh i 
the Roman, having fatigued his soldiers to no purpose, a, 
ter there was no hope of gaining possession of the camp, 
gave the signal for retreat ; which, when Hannibal heard, 
and saw that the attack was slackened, and that they were 
retreating from the camp, instantly having sent out the 
cavalry on the right and left against the enemy, he himself 
in the middle, with the main force of the infantry rushed 
out from the camp. Seldom has there been a combat more 
furious ; and few would have been more remarkable for 
the loss. on both sides if the day had suffered it to continue 
for a longer time. Xight broke off the battle when rag- 
ing most from the determined spirit of the combatants. 
The conflict, therefore, was more severe than the slaughter ; 
and, as it was pretty much a drawn battle, they separated 
with equal loss. On neither side fell more than six hun- 
dred infantry, and half that number of cavalry. But the 
loss of the Romans was more severe than proportionate to 
the number that fell, because several of equestrian rank, 
and five tribunes of the soldiers, and three prefects of the 
allies, were slain. After this battle Hannibal retired to the 



70 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chaf. 60. 



territory of the Ligurians, and Sempronius to Luca. Two 
Roman quaestors, Caius Fulvius and Lucius Lucretius, who 
had been treacherously intercepted, with two military trib- 
unes and five of the equestrian order, mostly sons of Sen- 
ators, are delivered up to Hannibal when coming among 
the Ligurians, in order that he might feel more convinced 
that the peace and alliance with them would be binding. 

60. While these things are transacting in Italy, Cneius 
Cornelius Scipio having been sent into Spain with a fleet 
and army, when, setting out from the mouth of the Rhone, 
and sailing past the Pyrenaean mountains, he had moored 
his fleet at Emporiae, having there landed his army, and be- 
ginning with the Lacetani, he brought the whole coast, as 
far as the river Iberus, under the Roman dominion, partly 
- by renewing the old, and partly by forming new alliances. 
The reputation for clemency acquired by these means had 
influence not only with the maritime states, but now also 
with the more savage tribes in the inland and mountainous 
districts ; nor was peace only effected with them, but also 
an alliance of arms, and several fine cohorts of auxiliaries 
were levied from their numbers. The country on this side 
of the Iberus was the province of Hanno, whom Hannibal 
had left to defend that region. He, therefore, judging 
that he ought to make opposition, before every thing was 
alienated from him, having pitched his eamp in sight of 
the enemy, led out his forces in battle-array ; nor did it 
appear to the Roman that the engagement ought to be de- 
ferred, as he knew that he must fight with Hanno and 
Hasdrubal, and wished rather to contend against each of 
them separately than against both together. The conflict 
did not prove one of great difficulty ; six thousand of the 
enemy were slain, and two thousand made prisoners, to- 
gether with the guard of the camp ; for both the camp 
was stormed, and the general himself, with several of the 
chief officers, taken ; and Scissis, a town near the camp, 
was also carried by assault. But the spoil of this town 
consisted of things of small value, such as the household 
furniture used by barbarians and slaves, that were worth 
little. The camp enriched the soldiers; almost all the 
valuable effects, not only of that army which was conquer- 
ed, but of that which was serving with Hannibal in Italy, 



t.r. 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



71 



having been left on this side the Pyrenees, that the bag- 
gage might not be cumbrous to those who conveyed it. 

61. Before any certain news of this disaster arrived, 
Hasdrubal, having passed the Iberus with eight thousand 
foot and a thousand horse, intending to meet the Romanr 
on their first approach, after he heard of the ruin of theL 
affairs at Scissis, and the loss of the camp, turned his 
route towards the sea. Not far from Tarraco, having dis- 
patched his cavalry in various directions, he drove to their 
ships, with great slaughter, and greater rout, the soldiers 
belonging to the fleet and the mariners, while scattered 
and wandering through the fields (for it is usually the 
case that success produces negligence) ; but not daring to 
remain longer in that quarter, lest he should be surprised 
by Scipio, he withdrew to the other side of the Iberus. 
And Scipio, having quickly brought up his army on the 
report of fresh enemies, after punishing a few captains of 
ships, and leaving a moderate garrison at Tarraco, return- 
ed with his fleet to Emporia?. He had scarcely departed, 
when Hasdrubal came up, and, having instigated to a revolt 
the state of the Ilergetes, which had given hostages to 
Scipio, he lays waste, with the youth of that very people, 
the lands of the faithful allies of the Romans. Scipio be- 
ing thereupon roused from his winter-quarters, Hasdru- 
bal again retires from all the country on this, side the 
Iberus. Scipio, when with a hostile army he had invaded 
the state of the Ilergetes, forsaken by the author of their 
revolt, and having driven them all into Athanagia, w r hich 
was the capital of that nation, laid siege to the city ; and 
within a few days, having imposed the delivery of more 
hostages than before, and also fined the Ilergetes in a sum 
of money, he received them back into his authority and 
dominion. He then proceeded against the Ausetani, near 
the Iberus, who were also the allies of the Carthaginians ; 
and having laid siege to their city, he cut off by an ambus- 
cade the Lacetani, while bringing assistance by night to 
their neighbors, having attacked thorn at a small distance 
from the city as they were designing to enter it. As 
many as twelve thousand were slain ; the rest, nearly all 
without their arms, escaped home, by dispersing through 
the country in every direction. Nor did any thing else 



72 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [u. xxi., chap. 62. 



but the winter, which was unfavorable to the besiegers, 
secure the besieged. The blockade continued for thirty- 
days, during which the snow scarce ever lay less deep than 
four feet ; and it had covered to such a degree the sheds 
and mantelets of the Romans, that it alone served as a 
de c ~nse when fire was frequently thrown on them by the 
enemy. At last, when Amusitus, their leader, had fled to 
Hasdrubal, they are surrendered, on condition of paying 
twenty talents of silver. They then returned into winter- 
quarters at Tarraco. 

62. At Rome, during this winter, many prodigies either 
occurred about the city, or, as usually happens when the 
minds of men are once inclined to superstition, many were 
reported and readily believed ; among which it was said 
that an infant of good family, only six months old, had 
called out " Io triumphe" in the herb-market : that in the 
cattle-market an ox had of his own accord ascended to the 
third story, and that thence, being frightened by the noise 
of the inhabitants, had flung himself down ; that the ap- 
pearance of ships had been brightly visible in the sky, and 
that the Temple of Hope in the herb-market had been 
struck by lightning ; that the spear at Lanuvium had 
shaken itself ; that a crow had flown down into the Tem- 
ple of Juno and alighted on the very couch ; that in the 
territory of Amiternum figures resembling men dressed in 
white raiment had been seen in several places at a distance, 
but had not come close to any one ; that in Picenum it 
had rained stones ; that at Caere the tablets for divination 
had been lessened in size ; and that in Gaul a wolf had 
snatched out the sword from the scabbard of a soldier on 
guard, and carried it off. On account of the other prodi- 
gies, the decemvirs were ordered to consult the books ; 
but on account of its having rained stones in Picenum, the 
festival of nine days was proclaimed, and almost all the 
state was occupied in expiating the rest, from time to time. 
First of all the city was purified, and victims of the greater 
kind were sacrificed to those gods to whom they were di- 
rected to be offered ; and a gift of forty pounds' weight 
of gold was carried to the Temple of Juno at Lanuvium ; 
and the matrons dedicated a brazen statue to Juno on the 
Aventine ; and a lectisterniura was ordered at Caere, where 



v i\, 534.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



73 



the tablets for divination had diminished ; and a supplica- 
tion to Fortune at Algidum ; at Rome, also, a lectisternium 
was ordered to Youth, and a supplication at the Temple 
of Hercules, first by individuals named, and afterwards by 
the whole people at all the shrines ; rive greater victims 
were offered to Genius ; and Caius Atilius Serranus, the 
pnetor, was ordered to make certain vows if the republic 
should remain in the same state for ten years. These 
things, thus expiated and vowed according to the Sibylline 
books, relieved, in a great degree, the public mind from 
superstitious fears. 

63. Flaminias, one of the consuls elect, to whom the le- 
gions which were wintering at Placentia had fallen by lot, 
sent an edict and letter to the consul, desiring that those 
forces should be ready in camp at Ariminum on the ides of 
March. He had a design to enter on the consulship in his 
province, recollecting his old contests with the fathers, 
which he had waged with them when tribune of the peo- 
ple, and afterwards when consul, first about his election to 
the office, which was annulled, and then about a triumph. 
He was also odious to the fathers on account of a new law 
which Quintus Claudius, a tribune of the people, had car- 
ried against the Senate, Caius Flaminias alone of that body 
assisting him, that no Senator, or he who had been father 
of a Senator, should possess a ship fit for sea-service con- 
taining more than three hundred amphora?. This size was 
considered sufficient for conveying the produce of their 
lands : all traffic appeared unbecoming a Senator. This 
contest, maintained with the warmest opposition, procured 
the hatred of the nobility to Flaminias, the advocate of the 
law, but the favor of the people, and afterwards a second 
consulship. For these reasons, thinking that they would 
detain him in the city by falsifying the auspices, by the 
delay of the Latin festival, and other hindrances to which 
a consul was liable, he pretended a journey, and, while yet 
in a private capacity, departed secretly to his province. 
This proceeding, when it was made public, excited new 
and additional anger in the Senators, who were before ir- 
ritated against him. They said "that Caius Flaminias 
waged war not only with the Senate, but now with the im- 
mortal gods ; that, having been formerly made consul with- 



14 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxi., chap. 63. 



out the p oper auspices, he had disobeyed both gods and 
men recalling him from the very field of battle ; and now, 
through consciousness of their having been dishonored, he 
had shunned the Capitol and the customary offering of 
vows, that he might not on the day of entering his office 
approach the Temple of Jupiter, the best and greatest of 
gods ; that he might not see and consult the Senate, him- 
self hated by it, as it was hateful to him alone ; that he 
might not proclaim the Latin festival, or perform on the 
Alban mount the customary rights to Jupiter Latiaris; 
that he might not, under the direction of the auspices, go 
up to the Capitol to offer his vows, and thence, attended 
by the lictors, proceed to his province in the garb of a gen- 
eral ; but that he had set off, like some camp-boy, without 
his insignia, without the lictors, with secrecy and stealth, 
just as if he had been quitting his country to go into ban- 
ishment: as if, forsooth, he would enter on his office more 
consistently with the dignity of the consulate at Ariminum 
than Rome, and assume the robe of office in a public inn 
better than before his own household gods." They unan- 
imously resolved that he should be recalled and brought 
back, and be constrained to perform in person every duty 
to gods and men before he went to the army and the prov- 
ince. Quintus Terentius and Marcus Antistius having set 
out on this embassy (for it was decreed that ambassadors 
should be sent), prevailed with him in no degree more 
than the letter sent by the Senate in his former consulship. 
A few days after he entered on his office, and as he was 
sacrificing, a calf, after being struck, having broken away 
from the hands of the ministers, sprinkled several of the 
by-standers with its blood. Flight and disorder ensued, 
to a still greater degree at a distance among those who 
were ignorant what was the cause of the alarm. This cir- 
cumstance was regarded by most persons as an omen of 
great terror. Having then received two legions from 
Sempronius, the consul of the former year, and two from 
Caius Atilius, the praetor, the array began to be led into 
Etruria, through the passes of the Apennines. 



t.r. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



75 



BOOK XXII. 

Hannibal, after an uninterrupted march of four days and three nights, 
arrives in Etruria, through the marshes, in which he lost an eye. Cai- 
us Flaminius, the consul, an inconsiderate man, having gone forth in 
opposition to the omens, dug up the standards which could not other- 
wise be raised, and being thrown from his horse immediately after he 
had mounted, is ensnared by Hannibal, and cut off by his army near 
the Thrasimene lake. Three thousand who had escaped are placed in 
chains by Hannibal, in violation of pledges given. Distress occasioned 
in Rome by the intelligence. The Sibylline books consulted, and a 
sacred spring decreed. Fabius Maximus sent as dictator against Han- 
nibal, whom he frustrates by caution and delay. Marcus Minncius, 
the master of the horse, a rash and impetuous man, inveighs against 
the caution of Fabius, and obtains an equality of command with him. 
The army is divided between them, and Minucius engaging Hannibal 
in an unfavorable position is reduced to the extremity of danger, and 
is rescued by the dictator^ and places himself under his authority. 
Hannibal, after ravaging Campania, is shut up by Fabius in a valley 
near the town of Casilinum, but escapes by night, putting to flight the 
Romans on guard by oxen with lighted fagots attached to their horns. 
Hannibal attempts to excite a suspicion of the fidelity of Fabius by 
sparing his farm while ravaging with fire the whole country around it. 
jfemilius Paulus and Terentius Varro are routed at Cannae, and forty 
thousand men slain, among whom were Paulus the consul, eighty Sen- 
ators, and thirty who had served the office of consul, praetor, or edile. 
A design projected by some noble youths of quitting Italy in despair 
after this calamity, is intrepidly quashed by Publius Cornelius Scipio, a 
military tribune, afterwards surnamed Africanus. Successes in Spain ; 
eight thousand slaves are enlisted by the Romans ; they refuse to ran- 
som the captives ; they go out in a body to meet Varro, and thank him 
for not having despaired of the commonwealth. 

1. Spring was now at hand, when Hannibal quitted his 
winter-quarters, having both attempted in- vain to cross the 
Apennines, from the intolerable cold, and having remained 
with great danger and alarm. The Gauls, whom the hope 
of plunder and spoil had collected, when, instead of being 
themselves engaged in carrying and driving away booty 
from the fields of others, they saw their own lands made 
the seat of war, and burdened by the wintering of the 



76 THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 1. 

armies of both parties, turned their hatred back again from 
the Romans upon Hannibal; and though plots were fre- 
quently concerted against him by their chieftains, he was 
preserved by the treachery they manifested towards each 
other ; disclosing their conspiracy with the same incon- 
stancy with which they had conspired, and by changing 
sometimes his dress, at other times the fashion of his hair, 
he protected himself from treachery by deception. How- 
ever, this fear was the cause of his more speedily quitting 
his winter-quarters. Meanwhile Cneius Servilius, the con- 
sul, entered upon his office at Rome on the ides of March. 
There, when he had consulted the Senate on the state of 
the republic in general, the indignation against Flaminius 
was rekindled. They said u that they had created indeed 
two consuls, that they had but one ; for what regular au- 
thority had the other, or what auspices ? That their mag- 
istrates took these with them from home, from the tutelar 
deities of themselves and the state, after the celebration of 
the Latin holidays, the sacrifice upon the mountain being 
completed, and the vows duly offered up in the Capitol : 
that neither could an unofficial individual take the auspices, 
nor could one who had gone from home without them take 
them new, and for the first time, in a foreign soil." Prod- 
igies announced from many places at the same time aug- 
mented the terror : in Sicily, that several darts belonging 
to the soldiers had taken fire ; and in Sardinia, that the 
staff of a horseman, who was going his rounds upon a wall, 
took fire as he held it in his hand; that the shores had 
blazed with frequent fires ; that two shields had sweated 
blood at Praoneste ; that red-hot stones had fallen from the 
heavens at Arpi ; that shields were seen in the heavens, 
and the sun fighting with the moon, at Capena ; that two 
moons rose in the day-time ; that the waters of Caere had 
flowed mixed with blood ; and that even the fountain of 
Hercules had flowed sprinkled with spots of blood. In 
the territory of Antium, that bloody ears of corn had fall- 
en into the basket as they were reaping. At Falerii, that 
the heavens appeared cleft as if with a great chasm ; and 
that where it had opened a vast light had shone forth; 
that the prophetic tablets had spontaneously become less ; 
and that one had fallen out thus inscribed, " Mars shakes 



y.K. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



11 



his spear." During the same time, that the statue of Mars 
at Rome, on the Appian Way, had sweated at the sight of 
images of wolves. At Capua, that there had been the ap- 
pearance of the heavens being on fire, and of the moon as 
falling amidst rain. After these, credit was given to prod- 
igies of less magnitude : that the goats of certain persons 
had borne wool; that a hen had changed herself into a 
cock, and a cock into a hen : these things having been laid 
before the Senate as reported, the authors being conduct- 
ed into the Senate-house, the consul took the sense of the 
fathers on religious affairs. It was decreed that those 
prodigies should be expiated, partly with full-grown, part- 
ly with sucking victims, and that a supplication should be 
made at every shrine for the space of three days ; that the 
other things should be done accordingly as the gods should 
declare in their oracles to be agreeable to their will, when 
the decemviri had examined the books. By the advice of 
the decemviri, it was decreed, first, that a golden thunder- 
bolt of fifty pounds' weight should be made as an offering 
to Jupiter; that offerings of silver should be presented to 
Juno and Minerva; that sacrifices of full-grown victims 
should be offered to Juno Regina on the Aventine, and to 
Juno Sospita at Lanuvium ; that the matrons, contribut- 
ing as much money as might be convenient to each, should 
carry it to the Aventine, as a present to J uno Regina ; and 
that a lectisternium should be celebrated. Moreover, that 
the very freedwomen should, according to their means, 
contribute money from which a present might be made to 
Feronia. When these things were done, the decemviri 
sacrificed with the larger victims in the Forum at Ardea. 
Lastly, it being now the month of December, a sacrifice 
was made at the Temple of Saturn at Rome, and a lecti- 
sternium ordered, in which Senators prepared the couch and 
a public banquet. Proclamation was made through the 
city that the Saturnalia should be kept for a day and a 
night ; and the people were commanded to account that 
day as a holiday, and observe it forever. 

2. While the consul employs himself at Rome in ap- 
peasing the gods and holding the levy, Hannibal, setting 
out from his winter-quarters, because it was reported that 
the consul Flaminius had now arrived at Arretium, al- 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 3. 



though a longer but more commodious route was pointed 
out to him, takes the nearer road through a marsh where 
the Arno had, more than usual, overflowed its banks. He 
ordered the Spaniards and Africans (in these lay the 
strength of his veteran army) to lead, their own baggage 
being intermixed with them, lest, being compelled to halt 
anywhere, they should want what might be necessary for 
their use : the Gauls he ordered to go next, that they 
might form the middle of the marching body, the cavalry 
to march in the rear ; next, Mago, with the light-armed 
Numidians, to keep the army together, particularly coerc- 
ing the Gauls, if, fatigued with exertion and the length of 
the march, as that nation is wanting in vigor for such ex- 
ertions,, they should fall away or halt. The van still fol- 
lowed the standards wherever the guides did but lead 
them, through the exceedingly deep and almost fathomless 
eddies of the river, nearly swallowed up in mud, and 
plunging themselves in. The Gauls could neither support 
themselves when fallen, nor raise themselves from the ed- 
dies. Nor did they sustain their bodies with spirit nor 
their minds with hope, some scarce dragging on their 
wearied limbs ; others dying where they had once fallen, 
their spirits being subdued with fatigue, among the beasts 
which themselves also lay prostrate in every place. But 
chiefly watching wore them out, endured now for four 
days and three nights. When, the water covering every 
place, not a dry spot could be found where they might 
stretch their weary bodies, they laid themselves down 
upon their baggage, thrown in heaps into the waters. 
Piles of beasts, which lay everywhere through the whole 
route, afforded a necessary bed for temporary repose to 
those seeking any place which was not under water. 
Hannibal himself, riding on the only remaining elephant, 
to be the higher from the water, contracted a disorder in 
his eyes, at first from the unwholesomeness of the vernal 
air, which is attended with transitions from heat to cold ; 
and at length, from watching, nocturnal damps, the marshy 
atmosphere disordering his head, and because he had 
neither opportunity nor leisure for remedies, loses one of 
them. 

3. Many men and cattle having been lost thus wretch- 



y.b. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF HOME. 



19 



edly, when at length he had emerged from the marshes, 
he pitches his camp as soon as he could on dry ground. 
And here he received information, through the scouts sent 
in advance, that the Roman army was round the walls of 
Arretium. Next the plans and temper of the consul, the 
situation of the country, the roads, the sources from which 
provisions might be obtained, and whatever else it was 
useful to know; all these things he ascertained by the 
most diligent inquiry. The country was among the most 
fertile of Italy, the plains of Etruria, between Faesulae and 
Arretium, abundant in its supply of corn, cattle, and every 
other requisite. The consul was haughty from his former 
consulship, and felt no proper degree of reverence not only 
for the laws and the majesty of the fathers, but even for 
the gods. This temerity, inherent in his nature, fortune 
had fostered by a career of prosperity and success in civil 
and military affairs. Thus it was sufficiently evident that, 
heedless of gods and men, he would act in all cases with 
presumption and precipitation ; and, that he might fall the 
more readily into the errors natural to him, the Cartha- 
ginian begins to fret and irritate him ; and leaving the 
enemy on his left, he takes the road to Fsesula?, and march- 
ing through the centre of Etruria, with intent to plunder, 
he exhibits to the consul, in the distance, the greatest de- 
vastation he could with fires and slaughters. Flaminius, 
who would not have rested even if the enemy had remain- 
ed quiet ; then, indeed, when he saw the property of the 
allies driven and carried away almost before his eyes, con- 
sidering that it reflected disgrace upon him that the Car- 
thaginian now roaming at large through the heart of Italy 
and marching without resistance to storm the very walls 
of Rome, though every other person in the council advised 
safe rather than showy measures, urging that he should 
wait for his colleague, in order that, joining their armies, 
they might carry on the war with united courage and 
counsels ; and that, meanwhile, the enemy should be pre- 
vented from his unrestrained freedom in plundering by 
the cavalry and the light-armed auxiliaries, in a fury hur- 
ried out of the council, and at once gave out the signal for 
marching and for battle. " Nay, rather," says he, " let us 
lie before the walls of Arretium, for here is our country, 



80 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [n. xxn., chap. 4. 



here our household gods. Let Hannibal, slipping through 
our fingers, waste Italy through and through ; and, ravag- 
ing and burning every thing, let him arrive at the walls of 
Rome ; nor let us move hence till the fathers shall have 
summoned Flaminius from Arretium, as they did Camillus 
of old from Veii." While reproaching them thus, and in 
the act of ordering the standards to be speedily pulled up, 
when he had sprung upon his horse, the animal fell sud- 
denly, and threw the unseated consul over his head. All 
the by-standers being alarmed at this as an unhappy omen 
in the commencement of the affair, in addition, word is 
brought that the standard could not be pulled up, though 
the standard-bearer strove with all his force. Flaminius, 
turning to the messenger, says, " Do you bring, too, letters 
from the Senate, forbidding me to act. Go, tell them to 
dig up the standard, if, through fear, their hands are so 
benumbed that they can not pluck it up." Then the army 
began to march ; the chief officers, besides that they dis- 
sented from the plan, being terrified by the twofold prod- 
igy ; while the soldiery in general were elated by the con- 
fidence of their leader, since they regarded merely the hope 
he entertained, and not the reasons of the hope. 

4. Hannibal lays waste the country between the city 
Cortona and the lake Trasimenus with all the devastation 
of war, the more to exasperate the enemy to revenge the 
injuries inflicted on his allies. They had now reached a 
place formed by nature for an ambuscade, where the Tras- 
imenus comes nearest to the mountains of Cortona. A 
very narrow passage only intervenes, as though room 
enough just for that purpose had been left designedly; 
after that a somewhat wider plain opens itself, and then 
some hills rise up. On these he pitches his camp, in full 
v view, where he himself, with his Spaniards and Africans, 
only might be posted. The Baliares and his other light 
troops he leads round the mountains ; his cavalry he posts 
at the very entrance of the defile, some eminences conven- 
iently concealing them ; in order that when the Romans 
had entered, the cavalry advancing, every place might be 
inclosed by the lake and the mountains. Flaminius, pass- 
ing the defiles before it was quite daylight, without recon- 
noitring, though he had arrived at the lake the preceding 



y.r. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



81 



day at sunset, when the troops began to be spread into the 
wider plain, saw that part only of the enemy which was 
opposite to him ; the ambuscade in his rear and overhead 
escaped his notice. And when the Carthaginian had his 
enemy inclosed by the lake and mountains, and surround- 
ed by his troops, he gives the signal to all to make a si- 
multaneous charge; and each running down the nearest 
way, the suddenness and unexpectedness of the event was 
increased to the Romans by a mist rising from the lake, 
which had settled thicker on the plain than on the mount- 
ains ; and thus the troops of the enemy ran down from the 
various eminences, sufficiently well discerning each other, 
and therefore with the greater regularity. A shout being 
raised on all sides, the Roman found himself surrounded 
before he could well see the enemy ; and the attack on the 
front and flank had commenced -ere his line could be well 
formed, his arms prepared for action, or his swords un- 
sheathed. 

5. The consul, while all were panic-struck, himself suffi- 
ciently undaunted, though in so perilous a case, marshals, 
as well as the time and place permitted, the lines which 
were thrown into confusion by each man's turning himself 
towards the various shouts; and wherever he could ap- 
proach or be heard, exhorts them, and bids them stand 
and fight : for that they could not escape thence by vows 
and prayers to the gods, but by exertion and valor ; that a 
way was sometimes opened by the sword through the midst 
of marshalled armies, and that generally the less the fear 
the less the danger. However, from the noise and tumult, 
neither his advice nor command could be caught ; and so 
far were the soldiers from knowing their own standards, 
and ranks, and position, that they had scarce sufficient 
courage to take up arms and make them ready for battle ; 
and certain of them were surprised before they could pre- 
pare them, being burdened rather than protected by them ; 
while in so great darkness there was more use of .ears than 
of eyes. They turned their faces and eyes in every direc- 
tion towards the groans of the wounded, the sounds of 
blows upon the body or arms, and the mingled clamors of 
the menacing and the affrighted. Some, as they were 
making their escape, were stopped, having encountered a 



82 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 6. 



body of men engaged in fight ; and bands of fugitives re- 
turning to the battle, diverted others. After charges had 
been attempted unsuccessfully in every direction, and on 
their flanks the mountains and the lake, on the front and 
rear the lines of the enemy inclosed them, when it was ev- 
ident that there was no hope of safety but in the right 
hand and the sword ; then each man became to himself a 
leader and encourager to action ; and an entirely new con- 
test arose, not a regular line, with principes. hastati, and 
triarii ; nor of such a sort as that the van-guard should 
fight before the standards., and the rest of the troops be- 
hind them ; nor such that each soldier should be in his 
own legion, cohort, or company: chance collects them into 
bands ; and each man's own. will assigned to him his post, 
whether to fight in front or rear ; and so great was the 
ardor of the conflict, so intent were their minds upon the 
battle, that not one of the combatants felt an earthquake 
which threw down large portions of many of the cities of 
Italy, turned rivers from their rapid courses, carried the 
sea up into rivers, and levelled mountains with a tremen- 
dous crash. 

6. The battle was continued near three hours, and in ev- 
ery quarter with fierceness ; around the consul, however, it 
was still hotter and more determined. Both the strongesi 
of the troops, and himself too, promptly brought assist- 
ance wherever he perceived his men hard-pressed and dis^ 
tressed. But, distinguished by his armor, the enemy at- 
tacked him with the utmost vigor, while his countrymen 
defended him; until an Insubrian horseman, named Duca- 
"ius, knowing him also by his face, says to his countrymen, 
6 Lo, this is the consul who slew our legions and laid waste 
>ur fields and city. Now will I offer this victim to the 
.hades of my countrymen, miserably slain ;" and putting 
spurs to his horse, he rushes through a very dense body of 
the enemy; and first slaying his armor-bearer, who had 
opposed himself to his attack as he approached, ran the 
consul through with his lance ; the triarii, opposing their 
shields, kept him off when seeking to despoil him. Then 
first the flight of a great number began ; and now neither 
the lake nor the mountains obstructed their hurried re- 
treat ; they run through all places, confined and precipi- 



Y.R.535.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 33 

tous, as though they were blind; and arms and men are 
tumbled one upon another. A great many, when there re- 
mained no more space to run, advancing into the water 
through the first shallows of the lake, plunge in, as far as 
they could stand above it with their heads and shoulder;?. 
Some there were whom inconsiderate fear induced to try 
to escape even by swimming; but as that attempt was in* 
ordinate and hopeless, they were either overwhelmed in 
the deep water, their courage failing, or, wearied to no pur- 
pose, made their way back, with extreme difficulty, to the 
shallows ; and there were cut up on all hands by the cav- 
alry of the enemy, which had entered the water. Near 
upon six thousand of the foremost body, having gallantly 
forced their way through the opposing enemy, entirely un- 
acquainted with what was occurring in their rear, escaped 
from the defile; and having halted on a certain rising 
ground, and hearing only the shouting and clashing of arms, 
they could not know nor discern, by reason of the mist, 
what was the fortune of the battle, y At length, the affair 
being decided, when the mist, dispelled by . the increasing 
heat of the sun, had cleared the atmosphere, then, in the 
clear light, the mountains and plains showed their ruin, 
and the Roman army miserably destroyed ; and thus, lest, 
being descried at a distance, the cavalry should be sent 
against them, hastily snatching up their standards, they 
hurried away with ali possible expedition. On the follow- 
ing day, when in addition to their extreme sufferings in 
other respects, famine also was at hand, Maharbal, who had 
followed them during the night with the whole body of 
cavalry, pledging his honor that he would ier, them depart 
with single garments if they would deliver up their arms, 
they surrendered themselves; which promise was kept 
by Hannibal with Punic fidelity, and he threw them ali into 
chains. 

1. This is the celebrated battle at the Trashnenus, and 
recorded among the few disasters of the Roman people. 
Fifteen thousand Romans were slair in the battle. Ten 
thousand, who had been scattered in the flight through ail 
Etruria, returned to the city by iifferent 1 aa&s, " One 
thousand five hundred of the ener.i,, [.<c;:ish.- the bat- 
tle; many on both sides died after r wounds. 



84 



THE HISTORY OF HOME. [a. xxn., chap. 7. 



The carnage on both sides is related, by some authors, to 
have been many times greater. I, besides that I would 
relate nothing drawn from a worthless source, to which 
the minds of historians generally incline too much, have 
as my chief authority Fabius, who was contemporary with 
the events of this war. Such of the captives as belonged 
to the Latin confederacy being dismissed without ransom, 
and the Romans thrown into chains, Hannibal ordered the 
bodies of his own men to be gathered from the heaps of 
the enemy and buried : the body of Flaminius too, which 
was searched for with great diligence for burial, he could 
not find. On the first intelligence of this defeat at Rome, 
a concourse of the people, dismayed and terrified, took 
place in the Forum. The matrons, wandering through 
the streets, ask all they meet, what sudden disaster was 
reported? what was the fate of the army? And when 
the multitude, like a full assembly, having directed their 
course to the comitium and Senate-house, were calling 
upon the magistrates, at length, a little before sunset, 
Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, declares, " We have been 
defeated in a great battle ;" and though nothing more defi- 
nite was heard from him, yet, full of the rumors which 
they had caught one from another, they carry back to 
their homes intelligence that the consul, with a great part 
of his troops, was slain ; that a few only survived, and 
these either widely dispersed in flight through Etruria, or 
else captured by the enemy. As many as had been the 
calamities of the vanquished army, into so many anxieties 
were the minds of those distracted whose relations had 
served under Flaminius, and who were uninformed of 
what had been the fate of their friends ; nor does any one 
know certainly what he should either hope or fear. Dur- 
ing the next and several successive days a greater num- 
ber of women almost than men stood at the gates, waiting 
either for some one of their friends or for intelligence of 
them, surrounding and earnestly interrogating those they 
met: nor could they be torn away from those they knew 
especially, until they had regularly inquired into every 
thing. Then, as they retired from the informants, you 
might discern their various expressions of countenance, 
according as intelligence, pleasing or sad, was announced 



t.r. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



85 



to each; and those who congratulated or condoled on 
their return home. The joy and grief of the women were 
especially manifested. They report that one, suddenly 
meeting her son, who had returned safe, expired at the 
very door before his face ; that another, who sat grieving 
at her house at the falsely reported death of her son, be- 
came a corpse, from excessive joy, at the first sight of him 
on his return. The praetors detained the Senators in the 
house for several days, from sunrise to sunset, deliberat- 
ing under whose conduct, and by what forces, the victori- 
ous Carthaginians could be opposed. 

8. Before their plans were sufficiently determined an- 
other unexpected defeat is reported : four thousand horse, 
sent under the conduct of C. Centenius, propraator, by 
Servilius to his colleague, were cut off by Hannibal in 
Umbria, to which place, on hearing of the battle at Trasi- 
menus, they had turned their course. The report of this 
event variously affected the people. Some, having their 
minds preoccupied with heavier grief, considered the re- 
cent loss of cavalry trifling, in comparison with their for- 
mer losses; others did not estimate what had occurred by 
itself, but considered that, as in a body already laboring 
under disease, a slight cause would be felt more violently 
than a more powerful one in a robust constitution ; so, 
whatever adverse event befell the state in its then sickly 
and impaired condition ought to be estimated, not by the 
magnitude of the event itself, but with reference to its ex- 
hausted strength, which could endure nothing that could 
oppress it. The state, therefore, took refuge in a remedy 
for "a long time before neither wanted nor employed, the 
appointment of a dictator ; and because the consul was 
absent, by whom alone it appeared he could be nominated ; 
and because neither message nor letter could easily be sent 
to him through the country occupied by Punic troops ; 
and because the people could not appoint a dictator, which 
had never been done to that day, the people created Quin- 
tus Fabius Maximus pro-dictator, and Marcus Minucius 
Rufus master of the horse. To them the Senate assigned 
the task of strengthening the walls and towers of the city ; 
of placing guards in such quarters as seemed good, and 
breaking down the bridges of the river, considering that 



86 



THE HISTORY OF HOME. [b. xxii., chap. 0. 



they must now fight at home in defense of their city, 
since they were unable to protect Italy. 

9, Hannibal, marching directly through Umbria, arrived 
at Spoletum ; thence, having completely devastated the ad- 
joining country, and commenced an assault upon the city, 
having been repulsed with great loss, and conjecturing 
from the strength of this one colony, which had been not 
very successfully attacked, what was the size of the city of 
Rome, turned aside into the territory of Picenum, which 
abounded not only with every species of grain, but was 
stored with booty, which his rapacious and needy troops 
eagerly seized. There he continued encamped for several 
days, and his soldiers were refreshed, who had been enfee- 
bled by winter marches and marshy ground, and with a 
battle niore successful in its result than light or easy. 
When sufficient time for rest had been granted for sol- 
diers delighting more in plunder and devastation than ease 
and repose ; setting out, he lays waste the territories of 
Pretutia and Hadria, then of the Marsi, the Mairucini, and 
the Peligni, and the contiguous region of Apulia around 
Arpi and Luceria. Cneius Serviiius, the consul, having 
fought some slight battles with the Gauls, and taken one 
inconsiderable town, when he heard of the defeat of his 
colleague and the army, alarmed now for the walls of the 
capital, marched towards the city, that he might not be ab- 
sent at so extreme a crisis. Quint us Fabius Maximus, a 
second time dictator, assembled the Senate the very day 
he entered on his office ; and commencing "with what re- 
lated to the gods, after he had distinctly proved to the fa- 
thers that Caius Flaminius had erred more from neglect 
of the ceremonies and auspices than from temerity and 
want of judgment, ard that the gods themselves should 
be consulted as to what were the expiations of their anger, 
he obtained a resolution that the decemviri should be or- 
dered to inspect the Sibylline books, which is rarely de- 
creed, except when some horrid prodigies were announced. 
Having inspected the prophetic books, they reported that 
the vow which was made to Mars on account of this war, 
not having been regularly fulfilled, must be performed 
afresh and more fully ; that the great games roust be vow- 
ed to Jupiter, temples to Venus Erycina and Mens ; that 



y.b. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF HOME. 



87 



a supplication and lectisternium must be made, and a sa- 
cred spring vowed 3 if the war should proceed favorably 
and the state continue the condition it was in before the 
war. Since the management of the war would occupy 
Fabius, the Senate orders Marcus iEniilius, the praetor, to 
see that all these things are done in good time, according 
to the directions of the college of pontiffs. 

10. These decrees of the Senate having been passed, 
Lucius Cornelius Lentulus, pontifex maximus, the colleague 
of praetors consulting with him, gives his opinion that, first 
of all, the people should be consulted respecting a sacred 
spring : that it could not be without the order of the peo- 
ple. The people having been asked according to this 
form : Do ye will and order that this thing should be per- 
formed in this manner? If the republic of the Roman 
people, the Quirites, shall be safe and preserved, as I wish 
it may, from these wars for the next five years (the war 
which is between the Roman people and the Carthaginian, 
and the wars which are with the Cisalpine Gauls), the Ro- 
man people, the Quirites, shall present whatsoever the 
spring shall produce from herds of swine, sheep, goats, 
oxen, and which shall not have been consecrated, to be sac- 
rificed to Jupiter, from the day which the Senate and peo- 
ple shall appoint. Let him who shall make an offering do 
it when he please, and in what manner he please ; in what- 
soever manner he does it, let it be considered duly done. 
If that which ought to be sacrificed die, let it be uneonse- 
crated, and let no guilt attach ; if any one unwittingly 
wound or kill it, let it be no injury to him ; if any one 
shall steal it, let no guilt attach to the people or to him 
from whom it w T as stolen ; if any one shall unwittingly of- 
fer it on a forbidden day, let it be esteemed duly offered ; 
also whether by night or day, whether slave or free man 
perform it. If the Senate and people shall order it to be 
offered sooner than any person shall offer it, let the people 
being acquitted of it be free. On the same account great 
games were vowed, at an expense of three hundred and 
thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three asses 
and a third ; moreover, it was decreed that sacrifice should 
be done to Jupiter with three hundred oxen, to many oth- 
er deities with white oxen and the other victims. The 



88 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 11. 



vows being duly made, a supplication was proclaimed ; 
and not only the inhabitants of the city went with their 
wives and children, but such of the rustics also as, possess- 
ing any property themselves, were interested in the wel- 
fare of the state. Then a lectisternium was celebrated for 
three days, the decemviri for sacred things superintend- 
ing. Six couches were seen ; for Jupiter and Juno one, 
for Neptune and Minerva another, for Mars and Venus a 
third, for Apollo and Diana a fourth, for Vulcan and Vesta 
a fifth, for Mercury and Ceves a sixth. Then temples were 
vowed. To Venus Erycina, Quintus Fabius Maximus vow- 
ed a temple ; for so it was delivered from the prophetic 
books, that he should vow it who held the highest author- 
ity in the state. Titus Otacilius, the praetor, vowed a tem- 
ple to Mens. 

11. Divine things having been thus performed, the dic- 
tator then put the question of the war and the state ; with 
what, and how many legions the fathers were of opinion 
that the victorious enemy should be opposed. It was de- 
creed that he should receive the army from Cneius Servili- 
us, the consul ; that he should levy, moreover, from the cit- 
izens and allies as many horse and foot as seemed good ; 
that he should transact and perform every thing else as he 
considered for the good of the state. Fabius said he 
would add two legions to the army of Servilius. These 
were levied by the master of the horse, and were appoint- 
ed by Fabius to meet him at Tibur on a certain day. And 
then, having issued proclamation that those whose towns 
or castles were unfortified should quit them and assemble 
in places of security ; that all the inhabitants of that tract 
through which Hannibal was about to march should re- 
move from the country, having first burnt their buildings 
and spoiled their fruits, that there might not be a supply 
of any thing ; he himself set out on the Flaminian road to 
meet the consul and his army ; and when he saw in the 
distance the marching body on the Tiber, near Ocriculum, 
and the consul with the cavalry advancing to him, he sent 
a beadle to acquaint the consul that he must meet the dic- 
tator without the lictors. When he had obeyed his com- 
mand, and their meeting had exhibited a striking display 
of the majesty of the dictatorship before the citizens and 



y.r. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



89 



allies, who, from its antiquity, had now almost forgotten 
that authority, a letter arrived from the city, stating that 
the ships of burden, conveying provisions from Ostia into 
Spain to the army, had been captured by the Carthaginian 
fleet off the port of Cossa. The consul, therefore, was im- 
mediately ordered to proceed to Ostia, and, having manned 
the ships at Rome or Ostia with soldiers and sailors, to 
pursue the enemy, and protect the coast of Italy. Great 
numbers of men were levied at Rome ; sons of f reedmen 
even, who had children, and were of the military age, had 
taken the oath. Of these troops levied in the city, such as 
were under thirty-five were put on board of ships, the rest 
were left to protect the city. 

12. The dictator, having received the troops of the con- 
sul from Fulvius Flaccus, his lieutenant-general, marching 
through the Sabine territory, arrived at Tibur on the day 
which he had appointed the new-raised troops to assemble. 
Thence he went to Praeneste, and cutting across the coun- 
try, came out in the Latin way, whence he led his troops 
towards the enemy, reconnoitring the road with the ut- 
most diligence; not intending to expose himself to hazard 
anywhere, except so far as necessity compelled him. The 
day he first pitched his camp in sight of the enemy, not far 
from Arpi, the Carthaginian, without delay, led out his 
troops, and, forming his line, gave an opportunity of fight- 
ing : but when he found all still with the enemy, and his 
camp free from tumult and disorder, he returned to his 
camp, saying indeed tauntingly, " That even the spirit of 
the Romans, inherited from Mars, was at length subdued ; 
that they were warred down ; and had manifestly given 
up all claim to valor and renown :" but burning inwardly 
with stifled vexation, because he would have to encounter 
a general by no means like Fiaminius and Sempronius; 
and because the Romans, then at length schooled by their 
misfortunes, had sought a. general a match for Hannibal; 
and that now he had no longer to fear the headlong vio- 
lence, but the deliberate prudence of the dictator. Having 
not yet experienced his constancy, he began to provoke 
and try his temper, by frequently shifting his camp and 
laying waste the territories of the allies before his eyes : 
and one while he withdrew out of sight at quick-march ; 



90 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 13. 



another while he halted suddenly, and concealed himself in 
some winding of the road, if possible to entrap him on his 
descending into the plain. Fabius kept marching his 
troops along the high grounds, at a moderate distance 
from the enemy, so as neither to let him go altogether nor 
yet to encounter him. The troops w r ere kept within the 
camp, except so far as necessary wants compelled them to 
quit it ; and fetched in food and wood not by small nor 
rambling parties. An outpost of cavalry and light-armed 
troops, prepared and equipped for acting in cases of sud- 
den alarm, rendered every thing safe to their own soldiers, 
and dangerous to the scattered plunderers of the enemy. 
Nor was his whole cau.ie committed to general hazard; 
while slight contests, of small importance in themselves, 
commenced on safe ground, with a retreat at hand, accus- 
tomed the soldiery, terrified by their former disasters, now 
at length to think less meanly either of their prowess or 
good-fortune. But he did not find Hannibal a greater en- 
emy to such sound measures than his master of the horse, 
who was only prevented from plunging the state into ruin 
by his inferiority in command. Presumptuous and pre- 
cipitate in his measures, and unbridled in his tongue, first 
among a few, then openly and publicly, he taunted him 
with being sluggish instead of patient, spiritless instead of 
cautious — falsely imputing to him those vices which bor- 
dered on his virtues ; and raised himself by means of de- 
pressing his superiors, which, though a most iniquitous 
practice, has become more general from the too great suc- 
cesses of many. 

13. Hannibal crosses over from the Hirpini into Samni- 
um ; lays waste the territory of Beneventum ; takes the 
town of Telesia ; and purposely irritates the dictator, if per- 
chance he could draw him down to a battle on the plain, 
exasperated by so many indignities and disasters inflicted 
on his allies. Among the multitude of allies of Italian ex- 
traction, who had been captured by Hannibal at the Tras- 
imenus and dismissed, were three Campanian horsemen, 
who had even at that time been bribed by many presents 
and promises from Hannibal to win over the affections of 
their countrymen to him. These, bringing him word that 
he would have an opportunity of getting possession of 



y.r. 535.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 91 



Capua if he brought his army iuto the neighborhood in 
Campania, induced Hannibal to quit Samnium for Campa- 
nia ; though he hesitated, fluctuating between confidence 
and distrust, as the affair was of more importance than the 
authorities. He dismissed them, repeatedly charging them 
to confirm their promises by acts, and ordering them to 
return with a greater number, and some of their leading 
men. Hannibal himself orders his guide to conduct him 
into the territory of Casinum, being certified by persons 
acquainted with the country that if he seized that pass he 
would deprive the Romans of a passage by which they 
mi^ht cjet out to the assistance of their allies. But his 
Punic accent, ill adapted to the pronunciation of Latin 
names, caused the guide to understand Casilinum instead 
of Casinum ; and leaving his former course, he descends 
through the territory of Allifa?, Calatia, and Cales, into the 
plain of Stella, where, seeing the country inclosed on all 
sides by mountains and rivers, he calls the guide to him, 
and asks him where in the world he was? when he replied 
that on that day he would lodge at Casilinum: then at 
length the error was discovered, and that Casinum lay at 
a great distance in another direction. Having scourged 
the guide with rods and crucified him, in order to strike 
terror into all others, he fortified a camp, and sent Mahar- 
bal with the cavalry into the Falernian territory to pillage. 
This depredation reached as far as the waters of Sinuessa ; 
the Xumidians caused destruction to a vast extent, but 
flight and consternation through a still wider space. Yet 
not even the terror of these things, when all around was 
consuming in the flames of war, could shake the fidelity of 
the allies ; for this manifest reason, because they lived un- 
der a temperate and mild government : nor were they un- 
willing to submit to those who were superior to them, 
which is the only bond of fidelity. 

14. But when the enemy's camp was pitched on the 
Vulturnus, and the most delightful country in Italy was 
being consumed by fire, and the farm-houses, on all hands, 
were smoking from the flames, while Fabius led his troops 
along the heights of Mount Massicus, then the strife had 
nearly been kindled anew, for they had been quiet for a 
few days, because, as the army had marched quicker than 



92 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b.xxii.,chap. 14. 



usual, they had supposed that the object of this haste was 
to save Campania from devastation ; but when they ar- 
rived at the extreme ridge of Mount Massicus, and the en- 
emy appeared under their eyes, burning the houses of the 
Falernian territory, and of the settlers of Sinuessa, and no 
mention made of battle, Minucius exclaims, "Are we come 
here to see our allies butchered, and their property burn- 
ed, as a spectacle to be enjoyed ? and if we are not moved 
with shame on account of any others, are we not on ac- 
count of these citizens, whom our fathers sent as settlers 
to Sinuessa, that this frontier might be protected from the 
Samnite foe: which now not the neighboring Samnite 
wastes with fire, but a Carthaginian foreigner, who has ad- 
vanced even thus far from the remotest limits of the world, 
through our dilatoriness and inactivity ? What ! are we 
so degenerate from our ancestors as tamely to see that 
coast filled with Numidian and Moorish foes, along which 
our fathers considered it a disgrace to their government 
that the Carthaginian fleets should cruise ? We, who ere- 
while, indignant at the storming of Saguntum, appealed not 
to men only, but to treaties and to gods* behold Hanni- 
bal scaling the walls of a Roman colony unmoved. The 
smoke from the flames of our farm-houses and lands comes 
into our eyes and faces ; our ears ring with the cries of 
our weeping allies, imploring us to assist them oftener 
than the gods, while we here are leading our troops, like a 
herd of cattle, through shady forests and lonely paths, en- 
veloped in clouds and woods. If Marcus Furius had re- 
solved to recover the city from the Gauls, by thus travers- 
ing the tops of mountains and forests, in the same manner 
as this modern Camillus goes about to recover Italy from 
Hannibal, who has been sought out for our dictator in our 
distress, on account of his unparalleled talents, Rome would 
be the possession of the Gauls ; and I fear lest, if we are 
thus dilatory, our ancestors will so often have preserved it 
only for the Carthaginians and Hannibal; but that man 
and true Roman, on the very day on which intelligence 
was brought him to Veii that he was appointed dictator, 
on the authority of the fathers and the nomination of the 
people, came down into the plain, though the Janiculum 
was high enough to admit of his sitting down there and 



y.l. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



93 



viewing the enemy at a distance; and on that very day 
defeated the Gallic legions in the middle of the city, in the 
place where the Gallic piles are now, and on the following 
day on the Roman side of Gabii. What ! many years af- 
ter this, when we were sent under the yoke at the Caudine 
Forks by the Samnite foe, did Lucius Papirius Cursor take 
the yoke from the Roman neck and place it upon the 
proud Samnites, by traversing the heights of Samnium ? 
or was it by pressing and besieging Luceria, and challeng- 
ing the victorious enemy ? A short time ago, what was it 
that gave victory to Caius Lutatius but expedition? for 
on the day after he caught sight of the enemy, he surprised 
and overpowered the fleet, loaded with provisions, and en- 
cumbered of itself by its own implements and apparatus. 
It is folly to suppose that the war can be brought to a 
conclusion by sitting still, or by prayers ; the troops must 
be armed and led down into the plain, that you may en- 
gage man to man. The Roman power has grown to its 
present height by courage and activity, and not by such dil- 
atory measures as these, which the cowardly only designate 
as cautious." A crowd of Roman tribunes and knights 
poured round Minucius, while thus, as it were, haranguing ; 
his presumptuous expressions reached the ears of the com- 
mon soldiers; and had the question been submitted to 
the votes of the soldiers, they showed evidently that they 
would have preferred Minucius to Fabius for their general. 

15. Fabius, keeping his attention fixed no less upon his 
own troops than on the enemy, first shows that his reso- 
lution was unconquered by the former. Though he well 
knew that his procrastination was disapproved, not only in 
his own camp, but by this time even at Rome ; yet, in- 
flexibly adhering to the same line of policy, he delayed 
through the remainder of the summer; in order that Han- 
nibal, devoid of all hope of a battle, which he so earnestly 
desired, might now look out for a place for winter-quar- 
ters ; because that district was one of present, but not con- 
stant, supply, consisting, as it did, of plantations and vine- 
yards, and all places planted with luxurious rather than 
useful produce. This intelligence was brought to Fabius 
by his scouts. When he felt convinced that he would re- 
turn bv |J}^ 6ame narrow pass through which he had en- 



94 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 16. 



tered the Falernian territory, he occupied Mount Callic- 
ula and Casilinum with a pretty strong guard. Which 
city, intersected by the river Vulturnus, divides the Faler- 
nian and Campanian territories. He himself leads back 
his troops along the same heights, having sent Lucius 
Hostilius Mancinus with four hundred of the allied cavalry 
to reconnoitre ; who, being one of the crowd of youths 
who had often heard the master of the horse fiercely ha- 
ranguing, at first advanced after the manner of a scout, in 
order that he might observe the enemy in security ; and 
when he saw the Numidians scattered widely throughout 
the villages, having gotten an opportunity, he also slew a 
few of them. But from that moment his mind was en- 
grossed with the thoughts of a battle, and the injunctions 
of the dictator were forgotten, who had charged him, 
when he had advanced as far as he could with safety to 
retreat before he came within the enemy's view. The 
Numidians, party after party, skirmishing and retreating, 
drew the general almost to their camp, to the fatigue of 
his men and horses. Then Karthalo, who had the com- 
mand of the cavalry, charging at full speed, and having 
put them to flight before he came within a dart's throw, 
pursued them for five miles almost in a continuous course. 
Mancinus, when he saw that the enemy did not desist from 
the pursuit, and that there was no hope of escape, having 
encouraged his troops, turned back to the battle, though 
inferior in every kind of force. Accordingly, he himself, 
and the choicest of his cavalry, being surrounded, are cut 
to pieces. The rest in disorderly retreat fled first to 
Cales, and thence to the dictator, by ways almost impass- 
able. It happened that on that day Minucius had formed 
a j unction with Fabius, having been sent to secure with a 
guard the pass above Tarracina, which, contracted into a 
narrow gorge, overhangs the sea, in order that Hannibal 
might not be able to get into the Roman territory by the 
Appian Way's being unguarded. The dictator and master 
of the horse, uniting their forces, lead them down into 
the road through which Hannibal was about to march his 
troops. The enemy was two miles from that place. 

16. The following day the Carthaginian filled the 
whole road between the two camps with his troops iu 



t.b.535.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



95 



marching order ; and though the Romans had taken their 
stand immediately under their rampart, having a decided- 
ly superior position, yet the Carthaginian came up with 
his light-horse, and, with a view to provoke the enemy, 
carried on a kind of desultory attack, first charging and 
then retreating. The Roman line remained in its position. 
The battle was slow, and more conformable to the wish 
of the dictator than of Hannibal. On the part of the Ro- 
mans there fell two hundred, on the part of the enemy 
eight hundred. It now began to appear that Hannibal 
was hemmed in, the road to Casilinum being blockaded ; 
and that while Capua, and Samnium, and so many wealthy 
allies in the rear of the Romans might supply them with 
provisions, the Carthaginian, on the other hand, must win- 
ter amidst the rocks of Formiae and the sands and hideous 
swamps of Liternum. Nor did it escape Hannibal that he 
was assailed by his own arts ; wherefore, since he could 
not escape by way of Casilinum, and since it was necessary 
to make for the mountains and pass the summit of Callic- 
ula, lest in any place the Romans should attack his troops 
while inclosed in valleys; having hit upon a stratagem 
calculated to deceive the sight, and excite terror from its 
appearance, by means of which he might baffle the enemy, 
he resolved to come up by stealth to the mountains at the 
commencement of night. The preparation of his wily 
stratagem was of this description. Torches, collected from 
every part of the country, and bundles of rods and dry 
cuttings, are fastened before the horns of oxen, of which, 
wild and tame, he had driven away a great number among 
other plunder of the country : the number of oxen was 
made up to nearly two thousand. To Hasdrubal was as- 
signed the task of driving to the mountains that herd, af- 
ter having set fire to their horns as soon as ever it was 
dark ; particularly, if he could, over the passes beset by 
the enemy. 

17. As soon as it was dark the camp was moved in 
silence ; the oxen were driven a little in advance of the 
standards. When they arrived at the foot of the mount- 
ains and the narrow passes, the signal is immediately 
given for setting fire to their horns and driving them vio- 
lently up the mountains before them. The mere terror 



96 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 18. 



excited by the flame, which cast a glare from their heads, 
and the heat now approaching the quick and the roots of 
their horns, drove on the oxen as if goaded by madness. 
By which dispersion, on a sudden all the surrounding 
shrubs were in a blaze, as if the mountains and woods had 
been on fire ; and the unavailing tossing of their heads 
quickening the flame, exhibited an appearance as of men 
running to and fro on every side. Those who had been 
placed to guard the passage of the wood, when they saw 
fires on the tops of the mountains, and some over their 
own heads, concluding that they were surrounded, aban- 
doned their post; making for the tops of the mountains 
in the direction in which the fewest fires blazed, as being 
the safest course ; however, they felkin with some oxen / 
which had strayed from their herds. jAt first, when they 
beheld them at a distance, they stood fixed in amazement 
at the miracle, as it appeared to them, of creatures breath- 
ing fire ; afterwards, when it showed itself to be a human 
stratagem, then, forsooth, concluding that there was an 
ambuscade, as they are hurrying away in flight with in- 
creased alarm, they fall in also with theiight-armed troops 
of the enemy. But the night, when the fear was equally 
shared, kept them from commencing the battle till morn- 
ing. Meanwhile Hannibal, having marched his whole 
army through the pass, and having cut off some of the 
enemy in the very defile, pitches his camp in the country 
of Allifa3. 

18. Fabius perceived this tumult, but concluding that it 
was a snare, and being disinclined for a battle, particular- 
ly by night, kept his troops within the works. At break 
of day a battle took place under the summit of the mount- 
ain, in which the Romans, who were considerably superior 
in numbers, would have easily overpowered the light-arm- 
ed of the enemy, cut off as they were from their party, 
had not a cohort of Spaniards, sent back by Hannibal for 
that very purpose, reached the spot. That body being 
more accustomed to mountains, and being more adapted, 
both from the agility of their limbs and also from' the 
character of their arms, to skirmishing amidst rocks and 
crags, easily foiled, by their manner of fighting, an enemy 
loaded with arms, accustomed to level ground and the 



y.k. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



97 



steady kind of fighting. Separating from a contest thus 
by no means equal, they proceeded to their camps ; the 
Spaniards almost all untouched ; the Romans having lost 
a few. Fabius also moved his camp, and passing the de- 
file, took up a position above Allifse, in a strong and ele- 
vated place. Then Hannibal, pretending to march to 
Rome through Samnium, came back as far as the Peligni, 
spreading devastation. Fabius led his troops along the 
heights midway between the army of the enemy and the 
city of Rome ; neither avoiding him altogether, nor com- 
ing to an engagement. From the Peligni the Carthagin- 
ian turned his course, iind going back again to Apulia, 
reached Geronium, a city deserted by its inhabitants from 
fear, as a part of its walls had fallen down together in 
ruins. The dictator formed a completely fortified camp 
in the territory of Larinum, and being recalled thence to 
Rome on account of some sacred rites, he not only urged 
the master of the horse, in virtue of his authority, but 
with advice and almost with prayers, that he would trust 
rather to prudence than fortune, and imitate him as a gen- 
eral rather than Sempronius and Flaminius ; that he 
would not suppose that nothing had beep achieved by 
having worn out nearly the whole summer in baffling the 
enemy ; that physicians, too, sometimes gained more by 
rest than by motion and action. That it was no small 
thing to have ceased to be conquered by an enemy so oft- 
en victorious, and to have taken breath after successive 
disasters. Having thus unavailingly admonished the mas- 
ter of the horse, he set out for Rome. 

19. In the beginning of the summer in which these 
events occurred, the war commenced by land and sea in 
Spain also. To the number of ships which he had re- 
ceived from his brother, equipped and ready for action, 
Hasdrubal added ten. The fleet of forty ships he deliver- 
ed to Himilco : and thus setting out from Carthage, kept 
his ships near the land, while he led his army along the 
shore, ready to engage with whichever part of his forces 
the enemy might fall in with. Cneius Scipio, when he 
heard that the enemy had quitted his winter-quarters, at 
first formed the same plan ; but afterwards, not daring to 
engage him by land, from a great rumor of fresh auxilia 



98 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 19. 



ries, he advances to meet him with a fleet of thirty-five 
ships, having put some chosen soldiers on board. Setting 
out from Tarraco, on the second day he reached a conven- 
ient station ten miles from the mouth of the Iberus. 
Two ships of the Massilians, sent forward from that place 
reconnoitring, brought word back that the Carthaginian 
fleet was stationed in the mouth of the river, and that the 
camp was pitched upon the bank. In order, therefore, to 
overpower them while off their guard, and incautious, by 
a universal and wide-spread terror, he weighed anchor and 
advanced. In Spain there are several towers placed in 
high situations, which they employ both as watch-towers 
and as places of defense against pirates. From them first 
a view of the ships of the enemy having been obtained, 
the signal was given to Hasdrubal ; and a tumult arose in 
the camp and on land, sooner than on the ships and at sea 
— the dashing of the oars and other nautical noises not be- 
ing yet distinctly heard, nor the promontories disclosing 
the fleet. Upon* this, suddenly one horseman after anoth- 
er, sent out by Hasdrubal, orders those who were strolling 
upon the shore or resting quietly in their tents, expecting 
any thing rather than the enemy and a battle on that day, 
immediately to embark and take up arms : that the Ro- 
man fleet was now a short distance from the harbor. The 
horsemen, dispatched in every direction, delivered these 
orders ; and presently Hasdrubal himself comes up with 
the main army. All places resound with noises of various 
kinds ; the soldiers and rowers hurrying together to the 
ships, rather like men running away from the land than 
marching to battle. Scarcely had all embarked, when 
some, unfastening the hawsers, are carried out against the 
anchors ; others cut their cables, that nothing might im- 
pede them ; and, by doing every thing with hurry and 
precipitation, the duties of mariners were impeded by the 
preparations of the soldiers, and the soldiers were prevent- 
ed from taking and preparing for action their arms, by 
the bustle of the mariners. And now the Roman was not 
only approaching, but had drawn up his ships for the bat- 
tle. The Carthaginians, therefore, thrown into disorder, 
not more by the enemy and the battle than by their own 
tumult, having rather made an attempt at fighting than 



y.e. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



99 



commenced a battle, turned their fleet for flight ; and as 
the mouth of the river which was before them could not 
be entered in so broad a line, and by so many pressing in 
at the same time, they ran their ships on shore in every 
part. And being received, some in the shallows, and oth- 
ers on the dry shore, some armed and some unarmed, they 
escaped to their friends, who were drawn up in battle-ar- 
ray over the shore. Two Carthaginian ships were cap- 
tured, and four sunk on the first encounter. 

20. The Romans, though the enemy was master of the 
shore, and they saw armed troops lining the whole bank, 
promptly pursuing the discomfited fleet of the enemy, tow- 
ed out into the deep all the ships which had not either 
shattered their prows by the violence with which they 
struck the shore, br set their keels fast in the shallows. 
They captured as many as twenty-five out of forty. Nor 
was that the most splendid result of their victory ; but 
they became masters of the whole sea on that coast by one 
slight battle ; advancing, then, with their fleet to Honosca, 
and making a descent from the ships upon the coast, when 
they had taken the city by storm and pillaged it, they af- 
terwards made for Carthage : then devastating the whole 
surrounding country, they, lastly, set fire, also to the build- 
ings contiguous to the wall and gates. Thence the fleet, 
laden with plunder, arrived at Longuntica, where a great 
quantity of oakum for naval purposes had been collected 
by Hasdrubal: of this, taking away as much as was suffi- 
cient for their necessities, they burnt all the rest. Nor did 
they only sail by the prominent coasts of the continent, 
but crossed over into the island Ebusus ; where, having 
with the utmost exertion, but in vain, carried on operations 
against the city which is the capital of the island, for two 
days, when they found that time was wasted to no purpose 
upon a hopeless task, they turned their efforts to the dev- 
astation of the country ; and having plundered and fired 
several villages, and acquired a greater booty than they 
had obtained on the continent, they retired to their ships, 
when ambassadors from the Baliares came to Scipio to sue 
for peace. From this place the fleet sailed back and re- 
turned to the hither parts of the province, whither ambas- 
sadors of all the people who dwell on the Iberus, and of 



100 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [n. xxii., chap. 22. 



mauy people in the most distant parts of Spain, assembled. 
But the number of states who really became subject to the 
authority and dominion of the Romans, and gave hostages, 
amounted to upward of one hundred and twenty. The 
Roman, therefore, relying sufficiently on his land forces 
also, advanced as far as the pass of Castulo. Hasdrubal 
retired into Lusitania, and nearer the ocean. 

21. After this, it seemed probable that the remainder of 
the summer would be peaceful ; and so it would have been 
with regard to the Punic enemy : but besides that the 
tempers of the Spaniards themselves are naturally restless, 
and eager for innovation, Mandonius, together with Indi- 
bilis, who had formerly been petty prince of the Ilergetes, 
having stirred up their countrymen, came to lay waste the 
peaceful country of the Roman allies, after the Romans 
had retired from the pass to the sea-coast. A militjary trib- 
une with some light-armed auxiliaries being sent against 
these by Scipio, with a small effort put them all to the 
rout, as being but a disorderly band : some having been 
captured and slain, a great portion of them were deprived 
of their arms. This disturbance, however, brought back 
Hasdrubal, who was retiring to the ocean, to protect his 
allies on this side the Iberus. The Carthaginian camp 
was in the territory of Ilercao, the Roman camp at the 
New Fleet, when unexpected intelligence turned the war 
into another quarter. The Celtiberians, who had sent the 
chief men of their country as ambassadors to the Romans, 
and had given them hostages, aroused by a message from 
Scipio, take up arms and invade the province of the Car- 
thaginians with a powerful army ; take three towns by 
storm ; and after that, encountering Hasdrubal himself in 
two battles with splendid success, slew fifteen thousand 
and captured four thousand, together with many military 
standards. 

22. This being the state of affairs in Spain, Publius 
Scipio came into his province, having been sent thither by 
the Senate, his command being continued to him after his 
consulate, with thirty long ships, eight thousand soldiers, 
and a large importation of provisions. That fleet, swelled 
to an enormous size by a multitude of transports, being de- 
scried at a distance, entered safe the port of Tarraco, to 



y.b. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



101 



the great joy of the citizens and allies. Landing his troops 
there, Scipio set out and formed a junction with his broth- 
er, and thenceforward they prosecuted the war with united 
courage and counsels. While the Carthaginians, there- 
fore, were occupied with the Celtiberian war, they prompt- 
ly crossed the Iberus, and, not seeing any enemy, pursue 
their course to Saguntum ; for it was reported that the 
hostages from every part of Spain, having been consigned 
to custody, were kept in the citadel of that place under a 
small guard. That pledge alone checked the affections of 
all the people of Spain, which were inclined towards an al- 
liance with the Romans, lest the guilt of their defection 
should be expiated with the blood of their children. One 
man, by a stratagem more subtle than honorable, liberated 
the Spaniards from this restraint. There was at Sagun- 
tum a noble Spaniard, named Abelux, hitherto faithful to 
the Carthaginians, but now (such are, for the most part, 
the dispositions of barbarians) had changed his attach- 
ment with fortune; but, considering that a deserter going 
over to enemies without the betraying of something val- 
uable would be looked upon only as a stigmatized and 
worthless individual, was solicitous to render as great a 
service as possible to his new confederates. Having turn- 
ed over in his mind, then, the various means which, under 
the favor of fortune, he might employ, in preference to ev- 
ery other, he applied himself to the delivering up of the 
hostages ; concluding that this one thing, above all others, 
would gain the Romans the friendship of the Spanish 
chieftains. But since he knew that the guards of the 
hostages would do nothing without the authority of Bos- 
tar, the governor, he addresses himself with craft to Bos- 
tar himself. Bostar had his camp without the city, just 
upon the shore, in order to preclude the approach of the 
Romans from that quarter. He informs him, taken aside 
to a secret place, and as if uninformed, in what position 
affairs were : " That hitherto fear had withheld the minds 
of the Spaniards to them, because the Romans were at a 
great distance ; that now the Roman camp was on this 
side the Iberus, a secure fortress and asylum for such as 
desired a change ; that therefore those whom fear could 
not bind should be attached by kindness and favor.'' 



102 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 22. 



When Bostar, in astonishment, earnestly asked him what 
sudden gift of so much importance that could be, he re- 
plied, "Send back the hostages to their states: this will 
be an acceptable boon, privately to their parents, who pos- 
sess the greatest influence in their respective states, and 
publicly to the people. Every man wishes to have confi- 
dence reposed in him ; and confidence reposed generally 
enforces the fidelity itself. The office of restoring the 
hostages to their homes I request for myself, that I may 
enhance my project by the trouble bestowed, and that I 
may add as much value as I can to a service in its own in- 
trinsic nature so acceptable." When he had persuaded 
the man, who was not cunning as compared with Cartha- 
ginian minds in general, having gone secretly and by night 
to the outposts of the enemy, he met with some auxiliary 
Spaniards ; and having been brought by them into the pres- 
ence of Scipio, he explains what brought him. Pledges 
of fidelity having been given and received, and the time 
and place for delivering the hostages having been appoint- 
ed, he returns to Saguntum. The following day he spent 
with Bostar in taking his commands for effecting the busi- 
ness ; having so arranged it that he should go by night, in 
order that he might escape the observation of the enemy, 
he was dismissed ; and awakening the guards of the youths 
at the hour agreed upon with them, set out and led them, 
as if unconsciously, into a snare prepared by his own de- 
ceit. They were brought to the Roman camp, and every 
thing else respecting the restoration of the hostages was 
transacted as had been agreed upon with Bostar, and in 
the same course as if the affair had been carried on in the 
name of the Carthaginians. But the favor of the Romans 
was somewhat greater than that of the Carthaginians 
would have been in a similar case ; for misfortune and 
fear might have seemed to have softened them, who had 
been found oppressive and haughty in prosperity. The 
Roman, on the contrary, on his first arrival, having been 
unknown to them before, had begun with an act of clemen- 
cy and liberality ; and Abelux, a man of prudence, did not 
seem likely to have changed his allies without good cause. 
Accordingly all began, with great unanimity, to meditate a 
revolt ; and hostilities would immediately have commenced, 



y.r. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



103 



had not the winter intervened, which compelled the Ro- 
mans, and the Carthaginians also, to retire to shelter. 

23. Such were the transactions in Spain, also, during the 
second summer of the Punic war ; while in Italy the pru- 
dent delay of Fabius had procured the Romans some in- 
termission from disasters ; which conduct, as it kept Han- 
nibal disturbed with no ordinary degree of anxiety, for it 
proved to him that the Romans had at length selected a 
general who would cany on the war with prudence, and 
not in dependence on fortune ; so was it treated with con- 
tempt by his countrymen, both in the camp and in the 
city ; particularly after that a battle had been fought dur- 
ing his absence from the temeiity of the master of the 
horse, in its issue, as I may justly designate it, rather joy- 
ful than successful. Two causes were added to augment 
the unpopularity of the dictator: one arising out of a 
stratagem and artful procedure of Hannibal ; for the farm 
of the dictator having been pointed out to him by desert- 
ers, he ordered that the fire and sword and every outrage 
of enemies should be restrained from it alone, while all 
around were levelled with the ground, in order that it 
might appear to have been the term of some secret com- 
pact : the other from an act of his own, at first perhaps 
suspicious, because in it he had not waited for the author- 
ity of the Senate, but in the result turning unequivocally 
to his highest credit with relation to the change of prison- 
ers ; for, as was the case in the first Punic war, an agree- 
ment had been made between the Roman and Carthagin- 
ian generals, that whichever received more prisoners than 
he restored should give two pounds and a half of silver 
for every man. And when the Roman had received two 
hundred and forty-seven more than the Carthaginian, and 
the silver which was due for them, after the matter had 
been frequently agitated in the Senate, was not promptly 
supplied, because he had not consulted the fathers, he sent 
his son Quintus to Rome and sold his farm, uninjured by 
the enemy, and thus redeemed the public credit at his own 
private expense. Hannibal lay in a fixed camp before the 
walls of Geronium, which city he had captured and burnt, 
leaving only a few buildings for the purpose of granaries: 
thence he was in the habit of sending out two-thirds of his 



104 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [n. xxn., chap. 24. 



forces to forage ; with the third part kept in readiness, 
he himself remained on guard, both as a protection to his 
camp, and for the purpose of looking out if from any quar- 
ter an attack should be made upon his foragers. 

24. The Roman army was at that time in the territory 
of Larinum. Minucius, the master of the horse, had the 
command of it, the dictator, as was before mentioned, hav- 
ing gone to the city. But the camp, which had been pitch- 
ed in an elevated and secure situation, was now brought 
down into the plain ; plans of a bolder character, agreeably 
with the temper of the general, were in agitation ; and ei- 
ther an attack was to be made upon the scattered foragers, 
or upon the camp now left with an inconsiderable guard. 
Nor did it escape the observation of Hannibal that the 
plan of the war had been changed with the general, and 
that the enemy would act with more boldness than coun- 
sel. Hannibal himself too, which one would scarcely cred- 
it, though the enemy was near, dispatched a third part of 
his troops to forage, retaining the remaining two-thirds in 
the camp. After that he advanced his camp itself near- 
er to the enemy, to a hill within the enemy's view, nearly 
two miles from Geronium, that they might be aware that 
he was on the alert to protect his foragers if any attack 
should be made upon them. Then he discovered an emi- 
nence nearer to, and commanding the very camp of, the Ro- 
mans ; and because, if he marched openly in the day-time 
to occupy it, the enemy would doubtless anticipate him by 
a shorter way, the Numidians, having been sent privately 
in the night, took possession of it. These occupying this 
position, the Romans the next day, despising the smallness 
of their numbers, dislodge, and transfer their camp thither 
themselves. There was now, therefore, but a very small 
space between rampart and rampart, and that the Roman 
line had almost entirely filled ; at the same time the caval- 
ry, with the light-infantry, sent out against the foragers 
through the opposite part of the camp, effected a slaugh- 
ter and flight of the scattered enemy far and wide. Nor 
dared Hannibal hazard a regular battle, because with so 
few troops that he would scarcely be able to protect his 
camp if attacked. And now he carried tm the war (for 
part of his army was away) according to the plans of Fa- 



y.b. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF IiOME. 



105 



bins, by sitting still and creating delays. He had also 
withdrawn his troops to their former camp, which was be- 
fore the walls of Geronium. Some authors affirm that they 
fought in regular line, and with encountering standards ; 
that in the first encounter the Carthaginian was driven 
in disorder quite to his camp ; but that, a sally thence hav- 
ing been suddenly made all at once, the Romans in their 
turn became alarmed ; that after that the battle was re- 
stored by the arrival of Numerius Decimius the Samnite ; 
that this man, the first in family and fortune, not only in 
Bovianum, whence he came, but in all Samnium, when con- 
ducting by command of the dictator to the camp eight 
thousand infantry and five hundred horse, having shown 
himself on the rear of Hannibal, seemed to both parties to 
be a fresh reinforcement coming with Quintus Fabius from 
Rome ; that Hannibal, fearing also some ambuscade, with- 
drew his troops; and that the Roman, aided by the Sam- 
nite, pursuing him, took by storm two forts on that day ; 
that six thousand of the enemy were slain, and about five 
thousand of the Romans ; but that though the loss was so 
nearly equal, intelligence was conveyed to Rome of a sig- 
nal victory ; and a letter from the master of the horse still 
more presumptuous. 

25. These things were very frequently discussed, both 
in the Senate and assemblies. When the dictator alone, 
while joy pervaded the city, attached no credit to the re- 
port or letter ; and, granting that all were true, affirmed 
that he feared more from success than failure ; then Mar- 
cus Metilius, a plebeian tribune, declares that such conduct 
surely could not be endured. That the dictator not only, 
when present, was an obstacle to the right management of 
the affair, but also, being absent from the camp, opposed it 
still when achieved ; that he studiously dallied in his con- 
duct of the war, that he might continue the longer in office, 
and that he might have the sole command both at Rome 
and in the army. Since one of the consuls had fallen in 
battle, and the other was removed to a distance from Italy, 
under pretext of pursuing a Carthaginian fleet, and the two 
praetors were occupied in Sicily and Sardinia, neither of 
which provinces required a praetor at this time. That 
Marcus Minucius, the master of the horse, was almost put 



106 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 2^ 



under a guard, lest he should see the enemy and carry on 
any warlike operation. That therefore, by Hercules, not 
only Samnium, which had now been yielded to the Cartha- 
ginians, as if it had been land beyond the Iberus, but the 
Campanian, Calenian, and Falernian territories had been 
devastated, while the dictator was sitting down at Casili- 
num, protecting his own farm with the legions of the Ro- 
man people : that the army, eager for battle, as well as the 
master of the horse, were kept back almost imprisoned 
within the rampart; that their arms were taken out of 
their hands, as from captured enemies : at length, as soon 
as ever the dictator had gone away, having marched out 
beyond their rampart, that they had routed the enemy and 
put him to flight. On account of which circumstances, 
had the Roman commons retained their ancient spirit, that 
he would have boldly proposed to them to annul the au- 
thority of Quintus Fabius ; but now he would bring for- 
ward a moderate proposition, to make the authority of the 
master of the horse and the dictator equal ; and that even 
then Quintus Fabius should not be sent to the army till he 
had substituted a consul in the room of Caius Flaminius. 
The dictator kept away from the popular assemblies, in 
which he did not command a favorable hearing ; and even 
in the Senate he was not heard with favorable ears, when 
his eloquence was employed in praising the enemy, and at- 
tributing the disasters of the last two years to the temerity 
and unskillfulness of the generals, and when he declared 
that the master of the horse ought to be called to account 
for having fought contrary to his injunction. That "if 
the supreme command and administration of affairs were 
intrusted to him, he would soon take care that men should 
know that to a good general fortune was not of great 
importance; that prudence and conduct governed every 
thing; that it was more glorious for him to have saved 
the army at a crisis, and without disgrace, than to have 
slain many thousands of the enemy." Speeches of this 
kind having been made without effect, and Marcus Atilius 
Regulus created consul, that he might not be present to 
dispute respecting the right of command, he withdrew to 
the army on the night preceding the day on which the 
proposition was to be decided. When there was an as- 



y.b. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



107 



sembly of the people at break of day, a secret displeasure 
towards the dictator, and favor towards the master of the 
horse, rather possessed their minds, than that men had not 
sufficient resolution to advise a measure which was agreea- 
ble to the public; and though favor carried it, influence 
was wanting to the bill. One man, indeed, was found who 
recommended the law, Caius Terentius Varro, who had 
been praetor in the former year, sprung not only from hum- 
ble but mean parentage. They report that his father was 
a butcher, the retailer of his own meat, and that he em- 
ployed this very son in the servile offices of that trade. 

26. This young man, when a fortune left him by his 
father, acquired in such a traffic, had inspired him with 
the hope of a higher condition, and the gown and Forum 
were the objects of his choice, by declaiming vehemently 
in behalf of men and causes of the lowest kind, in opposi- 
tion to the interest and character of the good, first came 
to the notice of the people, and then to offices of honor. 
Having passed through the offices of quaestor, plebeian, 
and curule aedile, and, lastly, that of praetor ; when now he 
raised his mind to the hope of the consulship, he courted 
the gale of popular favor by maligning the dictator, and 
received alone the credit of the decree of the people. All 
men, both at Rome and in the army, both friends and foes, 
except the dictator himself, considered this measure to 
have been passed as an insult to him ; but the dictator him- 
self bore the wnrong which the infuriated people had put 
upon him with the same gravity with which he endured 
the charges against him which his enemies laid before the 
multitude ; and receiving the letter containing a decree of 
the Senate respecting the equalization of the command 
while on his journey, satisfied that an equal share of mili- 
tary skill was not imparted together with the equal share 
of command, he returned to the army with a mind un- 
subdued alike by his fellow-citizens and by the enemy. 

21. But Minucius, who, in consequence of his success 
and the favor of the populace, was scarcely endurable be- 
fore, now especially, unrestrained by shame or moderation, 
boasted not more in having conquered Hannibal than 
Quintus Fabius. " That he, who had been sought out in 
their distress as the only general, and as a match for Han- 



108 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [a. xxii., chap. 28. 



nibal ; that he, an event which no record of history con- 
tains, was by the order of the people placed upon an equal 
footing with himself — a superior with an inferior officer, 
a dictator with a master of the horse — in that very city 
wherein the masters of the horse are wont to crouch and 
tremble at the rods and axes of the dictator. With such 
splendor had his valor and success shone forth. That he, 
therefore, would follow up his own good-fortune, though 
the dictator persisted in his delay and sloth ; measures 
condemned alike by the sentence of gods and men." Ac- 
cordingly, on the first day on which he met Quintus Fabi- 
us, he intimated " that the first point to be settled was the 
manner in which they should employ the command thus 
equalized. That he was of opinion that the best plan 
would be for them to be invested with the supreme author- 
ity and command either on alternate days, or, if longer in- 
tervals were more agreeable, for any determinate periods; 
in order that the person in command might be a match 
for the enemy, not only in judgment, but in strength, if any 
opportunity for action should occur." Fabius by no 
means approved of this proposition*: he said, " that For- 
tune would have at her disposal all things which the rash- 
ness of his colleague had ; that his command had been 
shared with him, and not taken away ; that he would never, 
therefore, willingly withdraw from conducting the war, in 
whatever post he could with prudence and discretion : nor 
would he divide the command with him with respect to 
times or days, but that he would divide the army, and 
that he would preserve by his own measures so much as 
he could, since it was not allowed him to save the whole." 
Thus he carried it, that, as was the custom of consuls, they 
should divide the legions between them: the first and 
fourth fell to the lot of Minucius, the second and third to 
Fabius. They likewise divided equally between them the 
cavalry, the auxiliaries of the allies and of the Latin name. 
The master of the horse was desirous, also, that they 
should have separate camps. 

28. From this Hannibal derived a twofold joy, for noth- 
ing which was going on among the enemy escaped him ; 
the deserters revealing many things, and he himself ex- 
amining by his own scouts. For he considered that 



y.r. 535.] THE HISTORY OF HOME. 



109 



he should be able to entrap the unrestrained temerity of 
Minucius by his usual arts, and that half the force of the 
sagacity of Fabius had vanished. There was an eminence 
between the camps of Minucius and the Carthaginians ; 
whoever occupied it would evidently render the position 
of his enemy less advantageous. Hannibal was not so de- 
sirous of gaining it without a contest, though that were 
worth his while, as to bring on a quarrel with Minucius, 
who, he well knew, would at all times throw himself in his 
way to oppose him. All the intervening ground was at 
first sight unavailable to one who wished to plant an am- 
buscade, because iU not only had not any part that was 
woody, but none even covered with brambles, but in reality 
formed by nature to cover an ambush ; so much the more, 
because no such deception could be apprehended in a 
naked valley; and there were in its curvatures hollow 
rocks, such that some of them were capable of containing 
two hundred armed men. Within these recesses five 
thousand infantry and cavalry are secreted, as many as 
could conveniently occupy each. Lest, however, in any 
part, either the motion of any one of them thoughtlessly 
coming out, or the glittering of their arms, should discover 
the stratagem in so open a valley, by sending out a few 
troops at break of day to occupy the before-mentioned 
eminence, he diverts the attention of the enemy. Imme- 
diately, on the first view of them, the smallness of their 
number was treated with contempt, and each man began 
to request for himself the task of dislodging the enemy. 
The general himself, among the most headstrong and ab- 
surd, calls to arms to go and seize the place, and inveighs 
against the enemy with vain presumption and menaces. 
First, he dispatches his light-armed; after that his cavalry, 
in a close body ; lastly, perceiving that succors were also 
being sent to the enemy, he marches with his legions drawn 
up in order of battle. Hannibal also, sending band after 
}>and, as the contest increased, as aids to his men when dis- 
tressed, had now completed a regular army, and a battle 
was fought with the entire strength of both sides. First, 
the light-infantry of the Romans, approaching the emi- 
nence, which was preoccupied, from the lower ground, be- 
ing repulsed and pushed down, spread a terror among the 



110 



TOE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 29. 



cavalry, which was marching up also, and fled back to the 
standards of the legions : the line of infantry alone stood 
fearless amidst the panic-struck ; and it appeared that they 
would by no means have been inferior to the enemy, had 
it been a regular and open battle, so much confidence did 
the successful battle a few days before inspire. But the 
troops in ambush created such confusion and alarm, by 
charging them on both flanks and on their rear, that no 
one had spirit enough left to fight, or hope enough to try 
to escape. 

29. Then Fabius, first having heard the shout of the ter- 
rified troops, and then having gotten a view of their dis- 
ordered Hne, exclaims, " It is so ; and no sooner than I 
feared has adverse fortune overtaken temerity. Equalled 
to Fabius in command, he sees that Hannibal is superior 
to him in courage and in fortune. But another will be the 
time for reproaches and resentment. Now advance your 
standards beyond the rampart : let us wrest the victory 
from the enemy, and a confession of their error from our 
countrymen." A great part of the troops having been 
now slain, and the rest looking about for a way to escape, 
the army of Fabius showed itself on a sudden for their 
help, as if sent down from heaven. And thus, before he 
came within a dart's tjirow or joined battle, he both stayed 
his friends from a precipitate flight and the enemy from 
excessive fierceness of fighting. Those who had been 
scattered up and down, their ranks being broken, fled for 
refuge from every quarter to the fresh army ; those who 
had fled together in parties, turning upon the enemy, now 
forming a circle, retreat slowly ; now concentrating them- 
selves, stand firm. And now the vanquished and the fresh 
army had nearly formed one line, and were bearing their 
standards against the enemy, when the Carthaginians 
sounded a retreat, Hannibal openly declaring that, though - 
he had conquered Minucius, he was himself conquered by 
Fabius. The greater part of the day having been thus 
consumed with varying success, Minucius calling together 
his soldiers, when they had returned to the camp, thus ad- 
dressed them : " I have often heard, soldiers, that he is 
the greatest man who himself counsels what is expedient, 
and that he who listens to the man who gives good advice 



y.r. 535.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. Ill 



is the second ; but that he who neither himself is capable 
of counselling, and knows not how to obey another, is of 
the lowest order of mind. Since the first place of mind 
and talent has been denied us, let us strive to obtain the 
second and intermediate kind ; and while we are learning 
to command, let us prevail upon ourselves to submit to a 
man of prudence. Let us join camps with Fabius, and, 
carrying our standards to his pavilion, when I have saluted 
him as my parent, which he deserves on account of the 
service he has rendered us and of his dignity, you, my sol- 
diers, shall salute those men as patrons, whose arms and 
right hands just now protected you ; and if this day has 
conferred nothing else upon us, it hath at least conferred 
upon us the glory of possessing grateful hearts." 

30. The signal being given, there was a general call to 
collect the baggage ; then setting out, and proceeding in 
order of march to the dictator's camp, they excited at 
once the surprise of the dictator himself and all around 
him. When the standards were planted before the tri- 
bunal, the master of the horse, advancing before the rest, 
having saluted Fabius- as father, and the whole body of 
his troops having, with one voice, sa ited the soldiers who 
.surrounded him as patrons, said, " To my parents, dicta- 
tor, to whom I have just now equalled you, only in name, 
as far as I could express myself, I am indebted for my life 
only ; to you I owe both my own preseiwation and that of 
all these soldiers. That order of the people, therefore, 
with which I have been oppressed rather than honored, I 
first cancel and annul ; and (may it be auspicious to me 
and you, and to these your armies, to the preserved and 
the preserver) I return to your authority and auspices, 
and restore to you these standards and these legions ; and 
I entreat you that, being reconciled, you would order that 
I may retain the mastership of the horse, and that these 
soldiers may each of them retain their ranks." After that 
hands were joined, and when the assembly was dismissed, 
the soldiers were kindly and hospitably invited by those 
known to them and unknown ; and that day, from having 
been a little while ago gloomy in the extreme, and almost 
accursed, was turned into a day of joy. At Rome, when 
the report of the action was conveyed thither, and was af- 



112 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [u. xxii., chap. 31. 



terwards confirmed, not less by letters from the common 
soldiers of both armies than from the generals themselves, 
all men individually extolled Maxim us to the skies. His 
renown was equal with Hannibal, and his enemies the Car- 
thaginians ; and then at length they began to feel that 
they were engaged in war wijth Romans and in Italy. For 
the two preceding years they entertained so utter a con- 
tempt for the Roman generals and soldiers, that they 
could scarcely believe that they were waging war with the 
same nation which their fathers had reported to them as 
being so formidable. They relate also, that Hannibal said, 
as he returned from the field, that at length that cloud, 
which was used to settle on the tops of the mountains, 
had sent down a shower with a storm. 

31. While these events occur in Italy, Cneius Servilius 
Gerainus, the consul, having sailed round the coast of Sar- 
dinia and Corsica with a fleet of one hundred and twenty 
ships, and received hostages from both places, crossed 
over into Africa ; and before he made a descent upon the 
continent, having laid waste the island of Meninx, and re- 
ceived from the inhabitants of Cercina ten talents of silver, 
in order that their fields too might not be burnt and pil- 
laged, he approached the shores of Africa and landed his 
troops. Thence the soldiers were led out to plunder, and 
the crews scattered about just as if they were plundering 
uninhabited islands ; and thus, carelessly falling upon an 
ambuscade, when they were surrounded — the ignorant of 
the country by those acquainted with it, the straggling 
by those in close array — they were driven back to their 
ships in ignominious flight, and with great carnage. As 
many as one thousand men, together with Sempronius Blae- 
sus, the quaestor, having been lost, the fleet hastily setting 
sail from the shore, which was crowded with the enemy,* 
proceeded direct for Italy, and was given up at Lilybaeum 
to Titus Otacilius, the praetor, that it might be taken back 
to Rome by his lieutenant, Publius Sura. The consul 
himself, proceeding through Sicily on foot, crossed the 
strait into Italy, summoned, as well as his colleague, Mar- 
cus Atilius, by a letter from Quintus Fabius, to receive 
the armies from him, as the period of his command, which 
was six months, had nearly expired. Almost all the an- 



V.r. 535.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



113 



nalists record that Fabius conducted the war against Han- 
nibal as dictator. Coelius also writes that he was the first 
dictator created by the people. But it has escaped Ca^lius 
and all the others that Cneius Servilius. the consul, who 
was then a long way from home in Gaul, which was his 
province, was the only person who possessed the right of 
appointing a dictator ; and that as the state, terrified by 
the disasters which had just befallen it, could not abide 
the delay, it had recourse to the determination that the 
people should create a pro-dictator; that his subsequent 
achievements, his singular renown as a general, and his 
descendants, who exaggerated the inscription of his statue, 
easily brought it about that he should be called dictator 
instead of pro-dictator. 

32. The consuls, Atilius and Geminus Servilius, having 
received, the former the army of Fabius, the latter that of 
Minucius, and fortified their winter-quarters in good time 
(it was the close of the autumn), carried on the war with 
the most pe: iect unanimity, according to the plans of Fa- 
bius. In many places they fell upon the troops of Hanni- 
bal when out on foraging excursions, availing themselves 
of the opportunity, and both harassing their march and 
intercepting the stragglers. They did not come to the 
chance of a general battle, which the enemy tried by every 
artifice to bring about. And Hannibal was so straitened 
by the want of provisions, that had he not feared, in retir- 
ing, the appearance of flight, he would have returned to 
Gaul, no hope being left of being able to subsist an army 
in those quarters if the ensuing consuls should carry on 
the war upon the same plan. The war having been ar- 
rested in its progress at Geroniura, the winter interrupt- 
ing it, ambassadors from Naples came to Rome. They 
carried into the Senate-house forty golden goblets of great 
weight, and spoke to this effect : " That they knew the 
treasury of the Romans was exhausted by the war; and 
since the war was carried on alike in defense of the cities 
and the lands of the allies, and of the empire and city of 
Rome, the capital and citadel of Italy, that the Neapoli- 
tans thought it but fair that they should assist the Roman 
people with whatever gold had been left them by their an- 
cestors as well for the decoration of their temples as for 



114 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 33. 



the relief of misfortune. If they had thought that there 
was any resource in themselves, that they would have of- 
fered it with the same zeal. That the Roman fathers and 
people would render an acceptable service to them if they 
would consider all the goods of the Neapolitans as their 
own ; and if they would think them deserving, that they 
should accept a present at their hands, rendered valuable 
and of consequence rather by the spirit and affection of 
those who gave it with cheerfulness than by its intrinsic 
worth." Thanks were given to the ambassadors for their 
munificence and attention, and the goblet of least weight 
was accepted. 

33. During the same days a Carthaginian spy, who had 
escaped for two years, was apprehended at Rome, and, his 
hands having been cut off, was let go; and twenty-five 
slaves were crucified for forming a conspiracy in the 
Campus Martius; his liberty was given to the informer, 
and twenty thousand asses of the heavy standard. Am- 
bassadors were also sent to Philip, king of the Macedoni- 
ans, to demand Demetrius of Pharia, w T ho, having been 
vanquished in war, had fled to him. Others were sent to 
the Ligurians, to expostulate with them for having assist- 
ed the Carthaginians with their substance and with auxil- 
iaries, and, at the same time, to take a near view of what 
was going on among the Boii and Insubrians. Ambas- 
sadors were also sent to the Illyrians to King Pineus, to 
demand the tribute, the day of payment of which had 
passed ; or, if he wished to postpone the day, to receive 
hostages. Thus, though an arduous war was on their 
shoulders, no attention to any one concern in any part of 
the world, however remote, escapes the Romans. It was 
made a matter of superstitious fear also, that the Temple- 
of Concord, whieh Lucius Manlius, the praetor, had vowed 
in Gaul two years ago, on occasion of a mutiny, had not 
been contracted for to that day. Accordingly, Cneius 
Pupius and Caeso Quinctius Flaminius, created duumviri 
by Marcus iEinilius, the city praetor, for that purpose, 
contract for the building a temple in the citadel. By the 
same praetor a letter was sent to the consuls, agreeably to 
a decree of the Senate, to the effect that, if they thought 
proper, one of them should come to Rome to elect consuls ; 



t.k. 536.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME, 



115 



and that he would proclaim the election for whatever day 
they might name. To this it was replied by the consuls 
that they could not leave the enemy without detriment to 
the public; that it would be better, therefore, that the 
election should be held by an interrex, than that one of 
the consuls should be called away from the war. It ap- 
peared more proper to the fathers that a dictator should 
be nominated by a consul, for the purpose of holding the 
election. Lucius Veturius Philo was nominated, who 
chose Manius Pomponius Matho master of the horse. 
These having been created with some defect, they were 
ordered to give up their appointment on the fourteenth 
day ; and the state came to an interregnum. 

34. To the consuls the authority was continued for a 
year longer. Caius Claudius Centho, son of Appius, and 
then Publius Cornelius Asina, were appointed interreges 
by the fathers. During the interregnum of the latter the 
election was held, with a violent contest between the pa- 
tricians and the people:-. Caius Terentius Varro, whom, as 
a man of their own order, commended to their favor by 
inveighing against the patricians and by other popular 
arts; who had acquired celebrity by maligning others, by 
undermining the influence of Fabius, and bringing into 
contempt the dictatoi ial authority, the commons strove to 
raise to the consulship. The patricians opposed him with 
all their might, lest men, by inveighing against them, 
should come to be placed on an equality with them. Quin- 
tus Boebius Herennius, a plebeian tribune, and kinsman of 
Caius Terentius, by criminating not only the Senate, but 
the augurs also, for having prevented the dictator from 
completing the election, by the odium cast upon them, 
conciliated favor to his own candidate. He asserted " that 
Hannibal had been brought into Italy by the nobility, who 
had for many years been desirous of a war. That by the 
fraudulent machinations of the same persons the war had 
been protracted, whereas it might have been brought to a 
conclusion. That it had appeared that the war could be 
maintained with an army consisting of four legions in all, 
from Marcus Minucius's having fought with success in the 
absence of Fabius. That two legions had been exposed to 
be slain by the enemy, and were afterwards rescued from 



116 



THE HISTOPY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 35. 



absolute destruction, in order that that man might be sa- 
luted as father and patron who had deprived them of vic- 
tory before he delivered them from defeat. That subse- 
quently the consuls, pursuing the plans of Fabius, had pro- 
tracted the war, whereas it was in their power to have put 
a period to it. That this was an agreement made by the 
nobility in general ; nor would they ever have the war con- 
cluded till they had created a consul really plebeian ; that 
is, a new man : for that plebeians who had attained nobil- 
ity were now initiated into the mysteries, and had begun 
to look down with contempt upon plebeians from the mo- 
ment they ceased to be despised by the patricians. Who 
was not fully aware that their end and object was, that an 
interregnum should be formed, in order that the elections 
might be under the influence of the patricians ? That both 
the consuls had that in view in tarrying with the army; 
and that afterwards a dictator having been nominated to 
hold the election contrary to their wishes, they had carried 
it, as it were, by storm, that the augurs should declare the 
dictator informally elected. That they, therefore, had got- 
ten an interregnum ; but one consulate was surely in the 
hands of the Roman people. Thus the people would have 
that at their own unbiased disposal, and that they would 
confer it on that man who w T ould rather conquer in reality 
than lengthen the term of his command." 

35. When the people had been inflamed by these ha- 
rangues, though there were three patrician candidates for 
the consulship, Publius Cornelius Merenda, Lucius Manlius 
Vulso, and Marcus ^Emilius Lepidus, two of plebeian fam- 
ilies, who had been ennobled, Caius Atilius Serranus and 
Quintus ^Elius Paetus, one of whom was pontiff, the oth^r 
an augur, Terentius alone was created consul, that the 
comitia for choosing his colleague might be in his own 
management. Then the nobles, finding that the competi- 
tors whom they had set up were not strong enough, though 
he strenuously refused for a long time, prevail upon ^Ernil- 
ius Paulus, who was strongly opposed to the people, to be- 
come a candidate. He had been consul before with Mar- 
cus Livius, and from the condemnation of his colleague, 
and almost of himself, had come off scathed. On the next 
day of the election, all who had opposed Varro withdraw- 



y.R. 53G.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



117 



ing, he is given to the consul rather as a match to oppose 
him than as a colleague. Afterwards the assembly for 
the election of praetors was held, and Manius Pomponius 
Matho and Publius Furius Philus were chosen. The city 
lot for the administration of justice at Rome fell to the lot 
of Pomponius ; between Roman citizens and foreigners, to 
Philus. Two praetors were added — Marcus Claudius Mar- 
cellus for Sicily, and Lucius Postumius for Gaul. These 
were all appointed in their absence; nor was an honor 
which he had not previously borne committed to any one 
of them, except the consul Terentius, several brave and 
able men having been passed over, because, at such a junc- 
ture, it did not appear advisable that a new office should 
be committed to any one. 

36. The forces also were augmented. But how great 
was the augmentation of infantry and cavalry authors vary 
so much, that I scarcely dare positively assert. Some state 
that ten thousand soldiers were levied as a reinforcement; 
others, four fresh legions, that there might be eight legions 
in service. It is said, also, that the complement of the 
legion was increased in respect both to foot and horse, one 
thousand foot and one hundred horse being added to each, 
so that each might contain five thousand foot and three 
hundred horse ; and that the allies furnished twice as many 
cavalry, and an equal number of infantry. Some authori- 
ties affirm that there were eighty-seven thousand two hun- 
dred soldiers in the Roman camp when the battle of Can- 
nae was fought. There is no dispute, that the war was 
prosecuted with greater energy and spirit than during 
former years, because the dictator had given them a hope 
that the enemy might be subdued. Before, however, the 
new-raised legions marched from the city, the decemviri 
were ordered to have recourse to and inspect the sacred 
volumes, on account of persons having been generally 
alarmed by extraordinary prodigies ; for intelligence was 
brought that it had rained stones on the Aventine at Rome 
and at Aricia at the same time. That among the Sabines 
statues had sweated blood copiously, and at Caere the 
waters had flowed warm from a fountain. The latter 
prodigy excited a greater degree of alarm, because it had 
frequently occurred. In a street called the Arched Way, 



118 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxh., chap, 37. 



near the Campus Martius, several men were struck by 
lightning and killed. These prodigies were expiated ac- 
cording to the books. Ambassadors from Paestum brought 
some golden goblets to Rome ; they were thanked, as the 
Neapolitans were, but the gold was not accepted. 

37. During the same time a fleet from Hiero arrived at 
Ostia with a large cargo of supplies. The Syracusan am- 
bassadors, on being introduced into the Senate, delivered 
this message : "That King Hiero was so much affected at 
the slaughter announced to him of Caius Flaminius the 
consul and his troops, that he could not have been more 
distressed at any disasters which could have befalien him- 
self or his own kingdom; and accordingly, though he was 
well aware that the greatness of the Roman people was al- 
most more admirable in adversity than prosperity, he had 
nevertheless sent every thing which good and faithful al- 
lies are wont to contribute to assist the operations of war, 
which he earnestly implored the conscript fathers not to 
refuse to accept. First of all, for the sake of the omen, 
they had brought a golden statue of Victory, of three hun- 
dred pounds' weight, which they begged them to accept, 
keep by them, and hold as their own peculiar and lasting 
possession. That they had also brought three hundred 
thousand pecks of wheat, and two hundred thousand of 
barley, that there might be no want of provisions ; and 
that as much more as might be necessary they would con- 
vey, as a supply, to whatever place they might appoint. 
He knew that the Roman people employed no legionary 
troops or cavalry who were not Romans, or of the Latin 
confederacy; that he had seen foreign auxiliary as well as 
native light-armed troops in the Roman camps; he had, 
therefore, sent one thousand archers and siingers, a suit- 
able force against the Baliares and Moors, and other na- 
tions which fought with missile weapons." To these pres- 
ents they added also advice : " That the praetor to whose 
lot the province of Sicily had fallen, should pass a fleet 
over to Africa, that the enemy also might have a war in 
their own country, and that less liberty should be afforded 
them of sending reinforcements to Hannibal." The Sen- 
ate thus replied to the king: "That Hiero was a good 
man and an admirable ally; and that from the time he first 



t.b. 536.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



119 



formed a friendship with the Roman people he had uni- 
formly cultivated a spirit of fidelity, and had munificently 
assisted the Roman cause at all times and in every place. 
That this was, as it ought to be, a cause of gratitude to the 
Roman people. That the Roman people had not accept- 
ed gold which had been brought them also from certain 
states, though they felt gratitude for the act. The Vic- 
tory and the omen," they said, " they would accept, and 
would assign and dedicate to that goddess, as her abode, 
the Capitol, the Temple of Jupiter, the best and greatest 
of gods ; hoping that, consecrated in that fortress of the 
city of Rome, she would continue there firm and immov- 
able, kind and propitious to the Roman people." The 
slingers, archers, and com were handed over to the consuls. 
To the fleet which Titus Otacilius the propraetor had in 
Sicily, twenty-five quinqueremes were added, and permis- 
sion was given him, if he thought it for the interest of the 
state, to pass over into Africa. 

38. The levy completed, the consuls waited a few days, 
till the allies of the Latin confederacy arrived. At this 
time the soldiers were bound by an oath, which had never 
before been the case, dictated by the military tribunes, that 
they would assemble at the command of the consuls, and 
not depart without orders ; for up to that time the mili- 
tary oath only had been employed ; and further, when the 
soldiers met to divide into decuries or centuries, the caval- 
ry being formed into decuries and the infantry into centu- 
ries, all swore together among themselves, of their own ac- 
cord, that they would not depart or quit their ranks for 
flight or fear, except for the purpose of taking up or fetch- 
ing a weapon, and either striking an enemy or saving a 
countryman. This, from being a voluntary compact among 
the soldiers themselves, was converted into the legal com- 
pulsion of an oath by the tribunes. Before the standards 
were moved from the city, the harangues of Varro were 
frequent and furious, protesting that the war had been in- 
vited into Italy by the nobles, and that it would continue 
fixed in the bowels of the state if it employed any more 
such generals as Fabius ; that he would bring the war to 
conclusion on the very day he got sight of the enemy. 
His colleague Paulus made but one speech, on the day be- 



120 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [u. xxir., chap. 39. 



fore they set out from the city, which was more true than 
gratifying to the people, in which nothing was said severe- 
ly against Varro, except this only — " That he wondered 
how any general, before he knew any thing of his own 
army or that of the enemy, the situation of the places, or 
the nature of the country, even now while in the city, and 
with the gown on, could tell what he must do when in 
arms, and could even foretell the day on which he would 
fight standard to standard with the enemy. That, for his 
own part, he would not, before the time arrived, prema- 
turely anticipate those measures which circumstances im- 
posed on men, rather than men on circumstances. He 
could only wish that those measures which were taken 
with due caution and deliberation might turn out pros- 
perously. That temerity, setting aside its folly, had hither- 
to been also unsuccessful." This obviously appeared, that 
he would prefer safe to precipitate counsels ; but that he 
might persevere the more constantly in this, Quintus Fabi- 
us Maximus is reported to have thus addressed him on his 
departure : 

39. "If you either had a colleague like yourself, Lucius 
iEmilius, which is what I should prefer, or you were like 
your colleague, an address from me would be superfluous. 
For were you both good consuls, you would do every 
thing for the good of the state from your own sense of 
honor, even without my saying a word ; and_ were you 
both bad consuls, you would neither receive my words 
into your ears nor my counsels into your minds. As the 
case now is, looking at your colleague and yourself, a man 
of such character, my address will be solely to you ; who, 
I feel convinced, will prove yourself a good man and a 
worthy citizen in vain, if the state, on the other hand, 
should halt. Pernicious counsels will have the same au- 
thority and influence as those which are sound. For you 
are mistaken, Lucius Paulus, if you imagine that you will 
have a less violent contest with Caius Terentius than with 
Hannibal. I know not whether the former, your oppo- 
nent, or the latter, your open enemy, be the more hostile. 
With the latter you will have to contend in the field only ; 
with the former, at every place and time. Hannibal, 
moreover, you have to oppose with your own horse and 



y.R. 536.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



121 



foot ; while Varro will head your own soldiers against 
you. Let Caius Flaminius be absent from your thoughts, 
even for the omen's sake. Yet he only began to play the 
madman's consul in his province, and at the head of the 
army. This man is raving before he put up for the con- 
sulship, afterwards while canvassing for it, and now hav- 
ing obtained it, before he has seen the camp or the enemy. 
And he who, by talking largely of battles and marshalled 
armies, even now excites such storms among the citizens 
with their gowns on, what do you think he will effect 
among the youth in arms, w T here words are followed forth- 
with by acts ? But be assured, if this man, as he protests 
he will, shall immediately engage the enemy, either I am 
unacquainted with military affairs, with this kind of war, 
and the character of the enemy, or another place will be- 
come more celebrated than the Trasimenus by our disas- 
ters. Neither is this the season for boasting while I am 
addressing one man ; and, besides, I have exceeded the 
bounds of moderation in despising rather than in courting 
fame. But the case is really this. The only way of con- 
ducting the war against Hannibal is that which I adopted : 
nor does the event only, that instructor of fools, demon- 
strate it, but that same reasoning which has continued 
hitherto, and will continue unchangeable so long as cir- 
cumstances shall remain the same. We. are carrying on 
war in Italy, in our own country, and our own soil. All 
around us are countrymen and allies in abundance. With 
arms, men, horses, and provisions, they do and will assist 
us. Such proofs of their fidelity have they given in our 
adversity. Time, nay, every day makes us better, wiser, 
and firmer. Hannibal, on the contrary, is in a foreign, a 
hostile land, amidst all hostile and disadvantageous cir- 
cumstances, far from his home, far from his country ; he 
has peace neither by land nor sea : no cities, no walls re- 
ceive him : he sees nothing anywhere which he can call 
his own : he daily lives by plunder. He has now scarcely 
a third part of that army which he conveyed across the 
Iberus. Famine has destroyed more than the sword ; nor 
have the few remaining a sufficient supply of provisions. 
Do you doubt, therefore, whether by remaining quiet we 
i shall not conquer him who is daily sinking into dwepi- 



122 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [n. xxn., chap. 40. 



tudc ? who has neither provisions nor money ? How long 
before the walls of Geronium, a miserable fortress of Apu- 
lia, as if before the walls of Carthage — ? But not even 
in your presence will I boast. See how Cneius Servilius 
and Atilius, the last consuls, fooled him. This is the only 
path of safety, Lucius Paulus, which your countrymen will 
render more difficult and dangerous to you than their ene- 
mies will. For your own soldiers will desire the same 
thing as those of the enemy : Varro, a Roman consul, and 
Hannibal, a Carthaginian general, will wish the same 
thing. You alone must resist two generals ; and you will 
resist them sufficiently if you stand firm against the report 
and the rumors of men; if neither the empty glory of 
your colleague, and the unfounded calumnies against your- 
self, shall move you. They say that truth too often suf- 
fers, but is never destroyed. He who despises fame will 
have it genuine. Let them call you coward instead of 
cautious, dilatory instead of considerate, unwarlike instead 
of an expert general. I Avould rather that a sagacious en- 
emy should fear you, than that foolish countrymen should 
commend you. A man who hazards all things HaDnibal 
will despise, him who does nothing rashly he will fear. 
And neithei do I advise that nothing should be done ; but 
that in what you do, reason should guide~you, and not 
fortune. All things will be within your own power, and 
your own. Be always ready armed and on the watch, and 
neither be wanting when a favorable opportunity presents 
itself, nor give any favorable opportunity to the enemy. 
All things are clear and sure to the deliberate man. Pre- 
cipitation is improvident and blind." 

40. The address of the consul in reply was by no means 
cheerful, admitting that what he said was true, rather 
than easy to put in practice. He said, " That to him, as 
dictator, his master of the horse was unbearable: what 
power or influence could a consul have against a factious 
and intemperate colleague? That lie had in his former 
consulate escaped a popular conflagration not without be- 
ing singed: his prayer was, that every thing might hap- 
pen prosperously ; but if, on the contrary, any misfortune 
should occur, that he would rather expose his life to the 
weapons of the enemy than to the votes of his incensed 



t.b. 536.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



123 



countrymen." Directly after this discourse, it is related 
that Paulus set out, escorted by the principal Senators. 
The plebeian consul attended his own plebeian party, 
more distinguished by their numbers than respectability. 
When they had arrived at the camp, the old and new 
troops being united, they formed two distinct camps, so 
that the new and smaller one might be the nearer to Han- 
nibal, and the old one might contain the greater part, and 
all the choicest of the troops. They then sent to Rome 
Marcus Atilius, the consul of the former year, who alleged 
his age in excuse. They appoint Gerainus Servilius to the 
command of a Roman legion, and two thousand of the al- 
lied infantry and cavalry in the lesser camp. Hannibal, 
although he perceived that the forces of the enemy were 
augmented by one-half, was yet wonderfully rejoiced at 
the arrival of the consuls ; for he had not only nothing re- 
maining of the provisions w T hich he daily acquired by 
plunder, but there was not even any thing left which he 
could seize, the corn in all the surrounding country having 
been collected into fortified cities when the country was 
too unsafe ; so that, as was afterwards discovered, there 
scarcely remained corn enough for ten days, and the Span- 
iards would have passed over to the enemy, through want 
of food, if the completion of that time had been awaited. 

41. But fortune afforded materials also to the head- 
strong and precipitate disposition of the consul; for, in 
checking the plundering parties, a battle having taken 
place of a tumultuary kind, and occasioned rather by a 
disorderly advance of the soldiers than by a preconcerted 
plan, or by the command of the general, the contest was 
by no means equal with the Carthaginians. As many as 
one thousand seven hundred of them were slain, but not 
more than one hundred of the Romans and allies. The 
consul Paulus, however, who was in command on that 
day (for they held the command on alternate days), 
apprehending an ambuscade, restrained the victorious 
troops in their headstrong pursuit; while Yarro indig- 
nantly vociferated that the enemy had been allowed to 
slip out of their hands, and that the war might have been 
terminated had not the pursuit been stopped. Hannibal 
was not much grieved at that loss ; nay, rather he felt 



124 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 42. 



convinced that the temerity of the more presumptuous 
consul, and of the soldiers, particularly the fresh ones, 
would be lured by the bait ; and, besides, all the circum- 
stances of the enemy were as well known to him as his 
own: that dissimilar and discordant men were in com- 
mand; that nearly two-thirds of the army consisted of 
raw recruits. Accordingly, concluding that he now had 
both a time and place adapted for an ambuscade, on the 
following night he led his troops away with nothing but 
their arms, leaving the camp filled with all their effects, 
both public and private. His infantry drawn up, he con- 
ceals on the left, on the opposite side of the adjoining 
hills ; his cavalry on the right ; his baggage, in an inter- 
mediate line, he leads over the mountains through a val- 
ley, in order that he might surprise the enemy when busy 
in plundering the camp, deserted, as they would imagine, 
by its owners, and when encumbered with booty. Nu- 
merous fires were left in the camp, to produce a belief 
that his intention was to keep the consuls in their places 
by the appearance of a camp, until he could himself es- 
cape to a greater distance, in the same manner as he had 
deceived Fabius the year before. 

42. When it was day, the outpost withdrawn first occa- 
sioned surprise ; then, on a nearer approach, the unusual 
stillness. At length, the desertion being manifest, there 
is a general rush to the pavilions of the consuls, of those 
who announced the flight of the enemy, so precipitate that 
they left their camp with their tents standing; and, that 
their flight might be the more secret, that numerous fires 
were left. Then a clamor arose that they should order 
the standards to be advanced, and lead them in pursuit 
of the enemy, and to the immediate plunder of the camp. 
The other consul, too, was as one of the common soldiers. 
Paulus again and again urged that they should see their 
way before them, and use every precaution. Lastly, when 
he could no longer withstand the sedition and the leader 
of the sedition, he sends Marius Statilius, a prefect, with a 
Lucanian troop, to reconnoitre, who, when he had ridden 
up to the gates, ordered the rest to stay without the 
works, and entered the camp himself, attended by two 
horsemen. Having carefully examined every thing, he 



y.b. 536.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



125 



brings back word that it was manifestly a snare: that 
tires were left in that part of the camp which faced the 
enemy ; that the tents were open, and that all their valua- 
bles were left exposed ; that in some places he had seen 
silver carelessly thrown about the passages, as if laid there 
for plunder. This intelligence, which it was hoped would 
deter their minds from greediness, inflamed them ; and 
the soldiers clamorously declaring that, unless the signal 
was given, they would advance without their leaders, they 
by no means wanted one, for Varro instantly gave the sig- 
nal for marching. Paulus, whom, unwilling from his own 
suggestions to move, the chickens had not encouraged by 
their auspices, ordered the unlucky omen to be reported 
to his colleague, when he was now leading the troops out 
of the gate. And though Varro bore it impatiently, yet 
the recent fate of Flaminius, and the recorded naval de- 
feat of Claudius, the consul in the first Punic war, struck 
religious scruples into his mind. The gods themselves 
(it might almost be said) rather postponed than averted 
the calamity which hung over the Romans ; for it fell out 
by mere accident that, when the soldiers did not obey 
the consul who ordered them to return to the camp, two 
slaves, one belonging to a horseman of Formiae, the other 
to one of Sidicinum, who had been cut off by the Numidi- 
ans among a party of foragers, when Servilius and Atilius 
were consuls, had escaped on that day to their masters : 
and, being brought into the presence of the consuls, in- 
form them that the whole army of Hannibal was lying in 
ambush on the other side of the adjoining mountains. 
The seasonable arrival of these men restored the consuls 
to their authority, when the ambition of one of them had 
relaxed his influence with the soldiers by an undignified 
compliance. 

43. Hannibal, perceiving that the Romans had been in- 
discreetly prompted, rather than rashly carried, to a con- 
clusion, returned to his camp without effecting any thing, 
as his stratagem was discovered. He could not remain 
there many days, in consequence of the scarcity of corn ; 
and, moreover, not only among the soldiers, who were mix- 
ed up of the offscouring of various nations, but even with 
the general himself, day by day new designs arose ; iov t 



126 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 44. 



first, when there had been murmuring of the soldiers, and 
then an open and clamorous demand of their arrears of 
pay, and a complaint, first, of the scarcity of provisions, 
and, lastly, of famine ; and there being a report that the 
mercenaries, particularly the Spanish, had formed a plan 
of passing over to the enemy, it is affirmed that Hannibal 
himself, too, sometimes entertained thoughts of flying into 
Gaul, so that, having left all his infantry, he might hurry 
away with his cavalry. Such being the plans in agitation, 
and such the state of feeling in the camp, he resolved to 
depart thence into the regions of Apulia, which were warm- 
er, and therefore earlier in the harvest. Thinking, also, 
that, the farther he retired from the enemy, the more diffi- 
cult would desertion be to the w T avering, he set out by 
night, having, as before, kindled fires, and leaving a few 
tents to produce an appearance ; that a fear of an ambus- 
cade, similar to the former, might keep the Romans in 
their places. But when intelligence was brought by the 
same Lucanian Statilius, who had reconnoitred every place 
on the other side the mountains, and beyond the camp, 
that the enemy was seen marching at a distance, then plans 
began to be deliberated on about pursuing him. The con- 
suls persisted in the same opinions they ever entertained ; 
but nearly all acquiesced with Varro, and none with Pan- 
lus except Servilius, the consul of the former year. In 
compliance with the opinion of the majority, they set out, 
under the impulse of destiny, to render Cannae celebrated 
by a Roman disaster. Hannibal had pitched his camp 
near that village, with his back to the wind Vulturnus, 
which, in those plains which are parched with drought, 
carries with it clouds of dust. This circumstance was not 
only very advantageous to the camp, but would be a great 
protection to them when they formed their line ; as they, 
with the wind blowing only on their backs, would combat 
with an enemy blinded with the thickly-blown dust. 

44. When the consuls, employing sufficient diligence in 
exploring the road in pursuit of the Carthaginian, had ar- 
rived at Canna3, where they had the enemy in the sight of 
them, having divided their forces, they fortify two camps, 
with nearly the same interval as before, at Geronium. 
The river Aufidus, which flowed by both the camps, af- 



y.e. 536.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME, 



127 



forded approach to the watering-parties of each, as oppor- 
tunity served, though not without contest. The Romans 
in the lesser camp, however, which was on the other side the 
Aufidus, were more freely furnished with water, because 
the farther bank had no guard of the enemy. Hannibal, 
entertaining a hope that the consuls would not decline a 
battle in this tract, which was naturally adapted to a cav- 
alry engagement, in which portion of his forces he was in- 
vincible, formed his line, and provoked the enemy by a 
skirmishing attack with his Numidians. Upon this the 
Roman camp began again to be embroiled by a mutiny 
among the soldiers, and the disagreement of the consuls : 
since Paulus instanced to Varro the temerity of Sempro- 
nius and Fjaminius; while Varro pointed to Fabius, as a 
specious example to timid and inactive generals. The lat- 
ter called both gods and men to witness "that no part of 
the blame attached to him, that Hannibal had now made 
Italy his own, as it were, by right of possession ; that he 
was held bound by his colleague; that the swords and 
arms were taken out of the hands of the indignant soldiers 
who were eager to fight.'' The former declared " that, if 
any disaster should befall the legions thus exposed and be- 
trayed into an ill-advised and imprudent battle, he should 
be exempt from any blame, though the sharer of all the 
consequences. That he must take care that their hands 
were equally energetic in the battle, whose tongues were 
so forward and impetuous." 

45. While time is thus consumed in altercation rather 
than deliberating, Hannibal, who had kept his troops drawn 
up in order of battle till late in the day, when he had led 
the rest of them back into the camp, sends Xumidians 
across the river to attack a watering-party of the Romans 
from the lesser camp. Having routed this disorderly 
band bv shouting and tumult, before thev had well reach- 
ed the opposite bank, they advanced even to an outpost 
which was before the rampart, and near the very gates of 
the camp. It seemed so great an indignity, that now even 
the camp of the Romans should be terrified by a tumultu- 
ary band of auxiliaries, that this cause alone kept back the 
Romans from crossing the river forthwith, and forming 
their line, that the chief command was on that day held 



128 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 46. 



by Paulus. Accordingly, Varro, on the following day, on 
which it was his turn to hold the command, without con- 
sulting his colleague, displayed the signal for battle, and, 
forming his troops, led them across the river. Paulus, fol- 
low^ because he could better disapprove of the proceed- 
ing than withhold his assistance. Having crossed the riv- 
er, they add to their forces those which they had in the 
lesser camp ; and thus forming their line, place the Roman 
cavalry in the right wing, which was next the river; and 
next them the infantry : at the extremity of the left wing 
the allied cavalry ; within them the allied infantry, extend- 
ing to the centre, and contiguous to the Roman legions. 
The darters, and the rest of the light-armed auxiliaries, 
formed the van. The consuls commanded the wings; 
Terentius the left ; JEmilius the right. To Geminus Ser- 
vilius was committed the charge of maintaining the battle 
in the centre. 

46. Hannibal, at break of day, having sent before him 
the Baliares and other light-armed troops, crossed the 
river, and placed his troops in line of battle, as he had con- 
veyed them across the river. The Gallic and Spanish cav- 
alry he placed in the left wing, opposite the Roman caval- 
ry : the right wing was assigned to the Numidian cavalry, 
the centre of the line being strongly formed by tb* infan- 
try, so that both extremities of it were composed of Afri- 
cans, between which Gauls and Spaniards were placed. 
One would suppose the Africans were for the most part 
Romans, they were so equipped with arms captured at the 
Trebia, and for the greater part at the Trasimenus. The 
shields of the Gauls and Spaniards were of the same shape ; 
their swords unequal and dissimilar. The Gauls had very 
long ones, without points. The Spaniards, who were ac- 
customed to stab more than to cut their enemy, had swords 
convenient, from their shortness, and with points. The 
aspect of these nations in other respects was terrific, both 
as to the appearance they exhibited and the size of their 
persons. The Gauls were naked above the navel: the 
Spaniards stood arrayed in linen vests resplendent with 
surprising whiteness, and bordered with purple. The 
whole amount of infantry standing in battle-array was for- 
ty thousand ; of cavalry ten. The generals who command- 



Y.E. 536.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



129 



ed the wings were, on the left, Hasdrubal ; on the right, 
Maharbal : Hannibal himself, with his brother Mago, com- 
manded the centre. The sun very conveniently shone 
obliquely upon both parties — the Romans facing the 
south, and the Carthaginians the north ; either placed so 
designedly, or having stood thus by chance. The wind, 
which the inhabitants of the district call the Tulturnus, 
blowing violently in front of the Romans, prevented their 
seeing far by rolling clouds of dust into their faces. 

47. The shout being raised, the auxiliaries charged, and 
the battle commenced, in the first place, with the light- 
armed troops : then the left wing, consisting of the Gallic 
and Spanish cavalry, engages with the Roman right wing, 
by no means in the manner of a cavalry battle ; for they 
were obliged to engage front to front ; for, as on one side 
the river, on the other the line of infantry hemmed them 
in, there was no space left at their flanks for evolution, 
but both parties were compelled to press directly forward. 
At length the horses standing still, and being crowded to- 
gether, man grappling with man, dragged him from his 
horse. The contest now came to be carried on principally 
on foot The battle, however, was more violent than last- 
ing; and the Roman cavalry being repulsed, turn their 
backs. About the conclusion of the contest between the 
cavalry, the battle between the infantry commenced. At 
first the Gauls and Spaniards preserved their ranks un- 
broken, not inferior in strength or courage ; but at length 
the Romans, after long and repeated efforts, drove in with 
their even front and closely^compacted line, that part of 
the enemy's line in the form of a wedge, which projected 
beyond the rest, which was too thin, and therefore defi- 
cient in strength. These men, thus driven back and has- 
tily retreating, they closely pursued ; and as they urged 
their course without interruption through this terrified 
band, as it fled with precipitation, were borne first upon 
the centre line of the enemy ; and, lastly, no one opposing 
them, they reached the African reserved troops. These 
were posted at the two extremities of the line, where it 
was depressed ; while the centre, where the Gauls and 
Spaniards were placed, projected a little. When the 
wedge thus formed being driven in, at first rendered the 



130 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxil, chap, 49. 



line level, but afterwards, by the pressure, made a curvature 
in the centre, the Africans, who had now formed wings on 
each side of them, surrounded the Romans on both sides, 
who incautiously rushed into the intermediate space ; and 
presently extending their w r ings, inclosed the enemy on the 
rear also. After this the Romans, who had in vain finish- 
ed one battle, leaving the Gauls and Spaniards, whose rear 
they had slaughtered, in addition commence a fresh en- 
counter with the Africans, not only disadvantageous, be- 
cause, being hemmed in, they had to fight against troops 
who surrounded them, but also because, fatigued, they 
fought w r ith those who were fresh and vigorous. 

48« Now also in the left wing of the Romans, in which 
the allied cavalry were opposed to the Numidians, the 
battle was joined, which was at first languid, commencing 
with a stratagem on the part of the Carthaginians. About 
five hundred Numidians, who, besides their usual arms, 
had swords concealed beneath their coats of mail, quitting 
their own party, and riding up to the enemy under the 
semblance of deserters, with their bucklers behind them, 
suddenly leap down from their horses, and, throwing down 
their bucklers and javelins at the feet of their enemies, are 
received into their centre, and, being conducted to the rear, 
ordered to remain there; and there they continued until 
the battle became general. But afterwards, when the 
thoughts and attention of all were occupied with the con- 
test, snatching up the shields which lay scattered on all 
hands among the heaps of slain, they fell upon the rear of 
the Roman line, and striking their backs and wounding 
their hams, occasioned vast havoc, and still greater panic 
and confusion. While in one part terror and flight pre- 
vailed, in another the battle was obstinately persisted in, 
though with little hope. Hasdrubal, who was then com- 
manding in that quarter, withdrawing the Numidians from 
the centre of the army, as the conflict with their opponents 
was slight, sends them in pursuit of the scattered fugitives, 
and joining the Africans, now almost weary with slaying 
rather than fighting the Spanish and Gallic infantry. 

49. On the other side of the field, Paulus, though severe- 
ly wounded from a sling in the very commencement of the 
battle, with a compact body of troops, frequently opposed 



t.k. 536.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



131 



himself to Hannibal, and in several quarters restored the 
battle, the Roman cavalry protecting him ; who, at length, 
when the consul had not strength enough even to manage 
his horse, dismounted from their horses. And when some 
one brought intelligence that the consul had ordered the 
cavalry to dismount, it is said that Hannibal observed, 
" How much rather would I that he delivered them to 
me in chains." The light maintained by the dismounted 
cavalry was such as might be expected, when the vic- 
tory was undoubtedly on the side of the enemy, the van- 
quished preferring death in their places to flight; and the 
conquerors, who were enraged at them for delaying the 
victory, butchering "those whom they could not put to 
flight. They at length, however, drove the few who re- 
mained away, worn out with exertion and wounds. After 
that they were all dispersed, and such as could sought to 
regain their horses for flight. Cneius Lentulus, a military 
tribune, seeing, as he rode by, the consul sitting upon a 
stone and covered with blood, said to him: "Lucius JEmil- 
ius ! the only man whom the gods ought to regard as be- 
ing guiltless of this day's disaster, take this horse, while 
you have any strength remaining, and I am with you to 
raise you up and protect you. Make not this battle more 
calamitous by the death of a consul. There is sufficient 
matter for tears and grief without this addition." In re- 
ply the consul said: M Do thou, indeed, go on and prosper, 
Cneius Servilius, in your career of virtue! But beware 
lest you waste in bootless commiseration the brief oppor- 
tunity of escaping from the hands of the enemy. Go and 
tell the fathers publicly to fortify the city of Rome, and 
garrison it strongly before the victorious enemy arrive ; 
and tell Quiutus Fabius, individually, that Lucius ^Emilius 
lived, and now dies, mindful of his injunctions. Allow me 
to expire amidst these heaps of my slaughtered troops, 
that I may not a second time be accused after my con- 
sulate, or stand forth as the accuser of my colleague, in or- 
der to defend my own innocence by criminating another." 
While finishing these words, first a crowd of their flying 
countrymen, after that the enemy, came upon them; they 
overwhelm the consul with their weapons, not knowing 
who he was : in the confusion his horse rescued Lentulus. 



132 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxu., chap. 50. 



After that they fly precipitately. Seven thousand escaped 
to the lesser camp, ten to the greater, about two thousand 
to the village itself of Cannae, who were immediately sur- 
rounded by Carthalo and the cavalry, no fortifications pro- 
tecting the village. The other consul, whether by design 
or by chance, made good his escape to Venusia with about 
seventy horse, without mingling with any party of the 
flying troops. Forty thousand foot, tw T o thousand seven 
hundred horse, there being an equal number of citizens 
and allies, are said to have been slain. Among these both 
the quaestors of the consuls, Lucius Atilius and Lucius 
Furius Bibaculus; twenty-one military tribunes; several 
who had passed the unices of consul, praetor, and aedile ; 
among these they reckon Cneius Servilius Germinus, and 
Marcus Minucius, who had been master of the horse on 
a former year, and consul some years before : moreover, 
eighty, either Senators, or who had borne those offices by 
which they might be elected into the Senate, and who had 
voluntarily enrolled themselves in the legions. Three 
thousand infantry and: three hundred cavalry are said to 
have been captured in that battle. 

50. Such is the battle of Cannae, equal in celebrity to the 
defeat at the Allia ; but as it was less important in respect 
to those things which happened after it, because the ene- 
my did not follow up the blow, so was it more important 
and more horrible with respect to the slaughter of the 
army ; for with respect to the flight at the Allia, as it be- 
trayed the city, so it preserved the army. At Cannae, 
scarcely seventy accompanied the flying consul : almost 
the whole army shared the fate of the other who died. 
The troops collected in the two camps being a half-armed 
multitude without leaders, those in the larger send a mes- 
sage to the others, that they should come over to them at 
night, when the enemy was oppressed with sleep and 
wearied with the battle, and then, out of joy, overpowered 
with feasting : that they would go in one body to Canu- 
siura. Some entirely disapproved of that advice. " For 
why," said they, " did not those who sent for them come 
themselves, since there would be equal facility of forming 
a junction ? Because, evidently, all the intermediate space 
was crowded with the, enemy, and they would rather ex- 



y.b. 536.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 133 



pose the persons of others to so great a danger than their 
own." Others did not so much disapprove as want cour- 
age to fulfill the advice. Publius Sempronius Tuditanus, 
a military tribune, exclaims, " Would you rather, then, be 
captured by the most rapacious and cruel enemy, and have 
a price set upon your heads, and have your value ascer- 
tained by men who will ask whether you are Roman citi- 
zens or Latin confederates, in order that from your mis- 
eries and indignities honor may be sought for another ? 
Not you, at least, if you are the fellow-citizens of Lucius 
uEmilius, the consul who preferred an honorable death to 
a life of infamy, and of so many brave men who lie heap- 
ed around him. But, before the light overtakes us, and 
more numerous bodies of the enemy beset the way, let us 
break through those disorderly and irregular troops who 
are making a noise at our gates. By the sword and cour- 
age, a road may be made through enemies, however dense. 
In a wedge we shall make our way through this loose and 
disjointed band, as if nothing opposed us. Come along 
with me, therefore, ye who wish the safety of yourselves 
and the state." Having thus said, he draws his sword, 
and, forming a wedge, goes through the midst of the ene- 
my; and as the Numidians discharged their javelins on 
their right side, which was exposed, they transferred their 
shields to the right hand, and thus escaped, to the num- 
ber of six hundred, to the greater camp ; and setting out 
thence forthwith, another large body having joined them, 
arrived safe at Canusium. These measures were taken 
by the vanquished, according to the impulse of their tem- 
pers, which his own disposition or which accident gave to 
each, rather than in consequence of any deliberate plan of 
their own, or in obedience to the command of any one. 

51. When all others, surrounding the victorious Hanni- 
bal, congratulated him, and advised that, having completed 
so great a battle, he should himself take the remainder of 
the day and the ensuing night for rest, and grant it to his 
exhausted troops ; Maharbal, prefect of the cavalry, who 
was of opinion that no time should be lost, said to him, 
" Nay, rather, that you may know what has been achieved 
by this battle, five days hence you shall feast in triumph in 
the Capitol. Follow me : I will go first with the cavalry, 



134 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii., chap. 52. 



that they may know that I am arrived before they know 
of me as approaching." To Hannibal this project appear- 
ed too full of joy, and too great for his mind to embrace it 
and determine upon it at the instant. Accordingly, he 
replied to Maharbal that " he applauded his zeal, but that 
time was necessary to ponder the proposal." Upon this 
Maharbal observed, " Of a truth the gods have not bestow- 
ed ail things upon the same person. You know how to 
conquer, Hannibal ; but you do not know how to make 
use of your victory." That day's delay is firmly believed 
to have been the perservation of the city and the empire. 
On the following day, as soon as it dawned, they set about 
gathering the spoils and viewing the carnage, which was 
shocking even to enemies. So many thousands of Romans 
were lying, foot and horse promiscuously, according as ac- 
cident had brought them together, either in the battle or 
in the flight. Some, whom their wounds, pinched by the 
morning cold, had roused, as they were rising up, covered 
with blood, from the midst of the heaps of slain, were 
overpowered by the enemy. Some, too, they found lying 
alive with their thighs and hams cut, who, laying bare 
their necks and throats, bid them drain the blood that 
remained in them. Some were found with their heads 
plunged into the earth, which they had excavated ; having 
thus, as it appeared, made pits for themselves, and hav- 
ing suffocated themselves by overwhelming their faces 
with the earth which they threw over them. A living 
Numidian, with lacerated nose and ears, stretched beneath 
a lifeless Roman who lay upon him, principally attracted 
the attention of all ; for when his hands were powerless to 
grasp his weapon, turning from rage to madness, he had 
died in the act of tearing his antagonist with his teeth. 

52. The spoils having been gathered for a great part of 
the day, Hannibal leads his troops to storm the lesser 
camp, and, first of all, interposing a trench, cuts it off from 
the river. But as the men were fatigued with toil, watch- 
ing, and wounds, a surrender was made sooner than he 
expected. Having agreed to deliver up their arms and 
horses on condition that the ransom of every Roman 
should be three hundred denarii, for an ally two hundred, 
for a slave one hundred, and that on payment of that ran- 



y.b. 53G.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



135 



som they should be allowed to depart with single gar- 
ments, they received the enemy into the camp, and were 
all delivered into custody, the citizens and allies being kept 
separate. While the time is being spent there, all who 
had strength or spirit enough, to the number of four thou- 
sand foot and two hundred horse, quitted the greater camp 
and arrived at Canusium ; some in a body, others widely 
dispersed through the country, which was no less secure a 
course : the camp itself was surrendered to the enemy by 
the wounded and timid troops, on the same terms as the 
other was. A very great booty was obtained; and, with 
the exception of the men and horses, and. what silver 
there was, which was for the most part on the trappings 
of the horses — for they had but very little in use for eat- 
ing from, particularly in campaign — all the rest of the 
booty was given up to be plundered. Then he ordered 
the bodies of his own troops to be collected for burial. 
They are said to have been as many as eight thousand of 
his bravest men. Some authors relate that the Roman 
consul also was carefully searched for and buried. Those 
who escaped to Canusium, being received by the people of 
that place within their walls and houses only, were assist- 
ed with corn, clothes, and provisions for their journey by 
an Apulian lady named Busa, distinguished for her family 
and riches ; in return for which munificence, the Senate 
afterwards, when the war was concluded, conferred honors 
upon her. 

53. But, though there were four military tribunes there 
— Fabius Maximus, of the first legion, whose father had 
been dictator the former year ; and of the second legion, 
Lucius Publicius Bibulus and Publius Cornelius Scipio ; 
and of the third legion, Appius Claudius Puleher,who had 
been aedile the last year-— by the consent of all, the supreme 
command was vested in Publius Scipio, then a very young 
man, and Appius Claudius. To these, while deliberating 
with a few others on the crisis of their affairs, Publius 
Furius Phiius, the son of a man of consular dignity, brings 
intelligence, " That it was in vain that they cherished 
hopes\vhich could never be realized ; that the state was 
despaired of, and lamented as lost. That certain noble 
youths, the chief of whom was Lucius Csecilius Metellus, 



136 THE HISTORY OF HOME. [b. xxii., chap. 54. 

turned their attention to the sea and ships, in order that, 
abandoning Italy, they might escape to some king." When 
this calamity, which was not only dreadful in itself, but 
new, and in addition to the numerous disasters they had 
sustained, had struck them motionless with astonishment 
and stupor ; and while those who were present gave it as 
their opinion that a council should be called to deliberate 
upon it, young Scipio, the destined general of this war, 
asserts, " That it is not a proper subject for deliberation : 
that courage and action, and not deliberation, were neces- 
sary in so great a calamity. That those who wished the 
safety of the state would attend him forthwith in arms ; 
that in no place was the camp of the enemy more truly 
than where such designs were meditated." He immedi- 
ately proceeds, attended by a few, to the lodging of Metel- 
lus ; and finding there the council of youths of which he 
had been apprised, he drew his sword over the heads of 
them, deliberating, and said, " With sincerity of soul I 
swear that neither will I myself desert the cause of the 
Roman republic, nor will I suffer any other citizen of 
Rome to desert it. If knowingly I violate my oath, then, 
O Jupiter, supremely great and good, mayest thou visit 
my house, my family, and my fortune with perdition the 
most horrible ! I require you, Lucius Caecilius, and the 
rest of you who are present, to take this oath ; and let the 
man who shall not take it be assured that this sword is 
drawn against him." Terrified, as though they were be- 
holding the victorious Hannibal, they all take the oath, and 
deliver themselves to Scipio to be kept in custody. 

54. During the time in which these things were going 
on at Canusium, as many as four thousand foot and horse, 
w ho had been dispersed through the country in the flight, 
came to Venusia, to the consul. These the Venusini dis- 
tributed throughout their families, to be kindly entertain- 
ed and taken care of ; and also gave to each horseman a 
gown, a tunic, and twenty-five denarii ; and to each foot- 
soldier ten denarii, and such arms as they wanted ; and 
every other kind of hospitality showed them, both publicly 
and privately : emulously striving that the people of Venu- 
sia might not be surpassed by a woman of Canusium in 
kind offices. But the great number of her guests rendered 



y.r. 536.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



137 



the burden more oppressive to Busa, for they amounted 
now to ten thousand men. Appius and Scipio, having 
heard that the other consul was safe, immediately send a 
messenger to inquire how great a force of infantry and 
cavalry he had with him, and at the same time to ask 
whether it was his pleasure that the army should be 
brought to Yenusia or remain at Canusium. Varro him- 
self led over his forces to Canusium. And now there was 
some appearance of a consular army, and they seemed able 
to defend themselves from the enemy by walls, if not by 
arms. At Rome intelligence had been received that not 
even these relics of their citizens and allies had survived, 
but that the two consuls, with their armies, were cut to 
pieces, and all their forces annihilated. Never, when the 
city was in safety, was there so great a panic and confu- 
sion within the walls of Rome. I shall therefore shrink 
from the task, and not attempt to relate what, in describ- 
ing, I must make less than the reality. The consul and 
his army having been lost at the Trasimenus the year be- 
fore, it was not one wound upon another which was an- 
nounced, but a multiplied disaster, the loss of two consular 
armies, together with the two consuls; and that now there 
was neither any Roman camp, nor general, nor soldiery : 
that Apulia and Samnium, and now almost the whole of 
Italy, were in the possession of Hannibal. Xo other na- 
tion surely would not have been overwhelmed by such an 
accumulation of misfortune. Shall I compare with it the 
disaster of the Carthaginians, sustained in a naval battle at 
the islands Agates, dispirited by which they gave up Sici- 
ly and Sardinia, and thenceforth submitted to become 
tributary and stipendary ? Or shall I compare with it the 
defeat in Africa, under which the same Hannibal after- 
wards sunk? In no respect are they comparable, except 
that they were endured with less fortitude. 

55. Publius Furius Philus and Manius Pomponius, the 
praetors, assembled the Senate in the curia hostilia, that 
they might deliberate about the guarding of the city ; for 
they doubted not but that the enemy, now their armies 
were annihilated, would come to assault Rome, the only 
operation of the war which remained. Unable to form 
any plan in misfortunes, not only very great, but unknown 



138 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxu., chap. 50. 



and undefined, and while the loud lamentations of the 
women were resounding, and nothing was as yet made 
known, the living and the dead alike being lamented in al- 
most every house ; such being the state of things, Quin- 
tus Fabius gave it as his opinion, " That light-horsemen 
should be sent out on the Latin and Appian ways, who, 
questioning those they met, as some would certainly be dis- 
persed in all directions from the flight, might bring back 
word what was the fate of the consuls and their armies; 
and if the gods, pitying the empire, had left any remnant 
of the Roman name where these forces were; whither 
Hannibal had repaired after the battle, what he was medi- 
tating ; what he was doing, or about to do. That these 
points should be searched out and ascertained by active 
youths. That it should be the business of the fathers, 
since there was a deficiency of magistrates, to do away 
with the tumult and trepidation in the city ; to keep the 
women from coming into public, and compel each to 
abide within her own threshold ; to put a stop to the lam- 
entations of families ; to obtain silence in the city ; to 
take care that the bearers of every kind of intelligence 
should be brought before the praetors ; that each person 
should await at home the bearer of tidings respecting his 
own fortune : moreover, that they should post guards at 
the gates, to prevent any person from quitting the city; 
and oblige men to place their sole hopes of safety in the 
preservation of the walls and the city. That when the tu- 
mult had subsided the fathers should be called again to 
the Senate-house, and deliberate on the defense of the 
city." 

56. When all had signified their approbation of this 
opinion, and after the crowd bad been removed by the 
magistrates from the Forum, and the Senators had pro- 
ceeded in different directions to allay the tumult ; then at 
length a letter is brought from the consul Terentius, stat- 
ing, " that Lucius iEmilius, the consul, and his army were 
slain ; that he himself was at Canusium, collecting, as it 
were after a shipwreck, the remains of this great disaster ; 
that he had nearly ten thousand irregular and unorganized 
troops. That the Carthaginian was sitting still at Cannae, 
bargaining about the price of the captives and the other 



y.r.536.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 139 



booty, neither with the spirit of a conqueror nor in tlie 
style of a great general." Then also the losses of private 
families were made known throughout the several houses ; 
and so completely was the whole city filled with grief, 
that the anniversary sacred rite of Ceres was intermitted, 
because it was neither allowable to perform it while in 
mourning, nor was there at that juncture a single matron 
who was not in mourning. Accordingly, lest the same 
cause should occasion the neglect of other public and pri- 
vate sacred rites, the mourning was limited to thirty days 
by a decree of the Senate. Now when the tumult in the 
city was allayed, an additional letter was brought from 
Sicily, from Titus Otacilius, the propraetor, stating, " that 
the kingdom of Hiero was being devastated by the Cartha- 
ginian fleet; and that, being desirous of affording him the 
assistance he implored, he received intelligence that anoth- 
er Carthaginian fleet was stationed at the iEgates, equip- 
ped and prepared ; in order that when the Carthaginians 
had perceived that he was gone away to protect the coast 
of Syracuse, they might immediately attack Lilybamm and 
other parts of the Roman province ; that he, therefore, 
needed a fleet, if they wished. him to protect the king their 
ally, and Sicily." 

57. The letters of the consul and the propraetor having 
been read, they resolved that Marcus Claudius, who com- 
manded the fleet stationed at Ostia, should be sent to the 
army to Canusium, and a letter be written to the consul, 
to the effect that, having delivered the army to the praetor, 
he should return to Rome the first moment he could con- 
sistently with the interest of the republic. They were ter- 
rified also, in addition to these disasters, both with other 
prodigies, and also because two vestal virgins, Opimia and 
Floronia, were that year convicted of incontinence ; one of 
whom was, according to custom, buried alive at the Colline 
Gate ; the other destroyed herself. Lucius Cantilius, sec- 
retary of the pontiff, whom they now call the lesser pon- 
tiffs, who had debauched Floronia, was beaten by rods in 
the comitium, by order of the chief pontiff, so that he ex- 
pired under the stripes. This impiety being converted 
into a prodigy, as is usually the case when happening in 
the midst of so many calamities, the decemviri were de- 



140 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxii.,chap. 5& 



sired to consult the sacred books. Quintus Fabius Pictor 
was also sent to Delphi, to inquire of the oracle by what 
prayers and offerings they might appease the gods, and 
what termination there would be to such great distresses. 
Meanwhile certain extraordinary sacrifices were perform- 
ed, according to the directions of the books of the fates ; 
among which a Gallic man and woman, and a Greek man 
and woman, were let down alive in the cattle-market, iuto 
a place fenced round with stone, which had been already 
polluted with human victims, a rite by no means Roman. 
The gods being, as they supposed, sufficiently appeased, 
Marcus Claudius Marcellus sends from Ostia to Rome, as 
a garrison for the city, one thousand five hundred soldiers, 
which he had with him, levied for the fleet. He himself 
sending before him a marine legion (it was the third le- 
gion), under the command of the military tribunes, to Tea- 
num Sidicinum, and delivering the fleet to Publius Furius 
Philus, his colleague, after a few days proceeded, by long 
marches, to Canusium. Marcus Junius, created dictator 
on the authority of the Senate, and Titus Sempronius, mas- 
ter of the horse, proclaiming a levy, enroll the younger 
men from the age of seventeen, and some who wore the 
toga praetexta : of these, four legions and a thousand horse 
were formed. They send also to the allies and the Latin 
confederacy, to receive the soldiers according to the terms 
of the treaty. They order that arms, weapons, and other 
things should be prepared ; and they take down from the 
temples and porticoes the old spoils taken from the enemy. 
They adopted, also, another and a new form of levy, from 
the scarcity of free persons, and from necessity : they arm- 
ed eight thousand stout youths from the slaves, purchased 
at the public expense, first inquiring of each whether he 
was willing to serve. They preferred this description of 
troops, though they had the power of redeeming the cap- 
tives at a less expense. 

58. For Hannibal, after so great a victory at Cannae, be- 
ing occupied with the cares of a conqueror, rather than 
one who had a war to prosecute, the captives having been 
brought forward and separated, addressed the allies in 
terms of kindness, as he had done before at the Trebia and 
the Lake Trasimenus, and dismissed them without a ran- 



t.k. 536.] THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



141 



som ; then he addressed the Romans too, who were called 
to him, in very gentle terms : " That he was not carrying 
on a war of extermination with the Romans, but was con- 
tending for honor and empire. That his ancestors had 
yielded to the Roman valor ; and that he was endeavoring 
that others might be obliged to yield, in their turn, to his 
good-fortune and valor together, Accordingly, he allowed 
the captives the liberty of ransoming themselves, and that 
the price per head should be five hundred denarii for a 
horseman, three hundred for a foot-soldier, and one hun- 
dred for a slave." Although some addition was made to 
that sum for the cavalry, which they stipulated for them- 
selves when they surrendered, yet they joyfully accepted 
any terms of entering into the compact. They determined 
that ten persons should be selected by their own votes, 
who might go to Rome to the Senate ; nor was any other 
guaranty of their fidelity taken than that they should swear 
that they would return. With these was sent Carthalo, a 
noble Carthaginian, who might propose terms, if perchance 
their minds were inclined towards peace. When they had 
gone out of the camp, one of their body, a man who had 
very little of the Roman character, under pretense of hav- 
ing forgotten something, returned to the camp, for the 
purpose of freeing himself from the obligation of his oath, 
and overtook his companions before night. When it was 
announced that they had arrived at Rome, a lictor was 
dispatched to meet Carthalo, to tell him, in the words of 
the dictator, to depart from the Roman territories before 
night. 

59. An audience of the Senate was granted by the dic- 
tator to the delegates of the prisoners. The chief of them, 
Marcus Junius, thus spoke : " There is not one of us, con- 
script fathers, who is not aware that there never was a na- 
tion which held prisoners in greater contempt than our 
own. But unless our own cause is dearer to us than it 
should be, never did men fall into the hands of the enemy 
who less deserved to be disregarded than we do ; for we 
did not surrender our arms in the battle through fear ; but 
having prolonged the battle almost till night-fall, while 
standing upon heaps of our slaughtered countrymen, we 
betook ourselves to our camp. For the remainder of the 

V 



142 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxji., chap. 59. 



day and during the following night, although exhausted 
with exertion and wounds, we protected our rampart. On 
the following day, when, beset by the enemy, we were de- 
prived of water, and there was no hope of breaking through 
the dense bands of the enemy ; and, moreover, not consid- 
ering it an impiety that any Koman soldier should survive 
the battle of Canna?, after fifty thousand of our army had 
been butchered ; then at length we agreed upon terms on 
which we might be ransomed and let off; and our arms, 
in which there was no longer any protection, we delivered 
to the enemy. We had been informed that our ancestors 
also had redeemed themselves from the Gauls with gold, 
and that, though so rigid as to the terms of peace, had 
sent ambassadors to Tarentum for the purpose of ransom- 
ing the captives. And yet both the fight at the Allia with 
the Gauls and at Heraclea with Pyrrhus was disgraceful, 
not so much on account of the loss as the panic and flight. 
Heaps of Roman carcasses cover the plains of Cannae; 
nor would any of us have survived the battle, had not 
the enemy wanted the strength and the sword to slay us. 
There are, too, some of us who did not even retreat in the 
field; but beiug left to guard the camp, came into the 
hands of the enemy when it was surrendered. For my 
part, I envy not the good-fortune or condition of any citi- 
zen or fellow-soldier, nor would I endeavor to raise myself 
by depressing another ; but not even those men who, for 
the most part, leaving their arms, fled from the field, and 
stopped not till they arrived at Venusia or Canusium; not 
even those men, unless some reward is due to them on ac- 
count of their swiftness of foot and running, would justly 
set themselves before us, or boast that there is more pro- 
tection to the state in them than in us. But you will both 
find them to be good and brave soldiers, and us still more 
zealous, because, by your kindness, we have been ransomed 
and restored to our country. You are levying from every 
age and condition : I hear that eight thousand slaves are 
being armed. We are no fewer in number ; nor will the 
expense of redeeming us be greater than that of purchas- 
ing these. Should I compare ourselves with them, I 
should injure the name of Roman. I should think also, 
conscript fathers, that, in deliberating on such a measure, 



t.k. 536.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



143 



it ought also to be considered (if you are disposed to be 
over-severe, which you can not do from any demerit of 
ours), to what sort of enemy you would abandon us. Is 
it to Pyrrhus, for instance, who treated us, when his pris- 
oners, like guests; or to a barbarian and Carthaginian, of 
whom it is difficult to determine whether his rapacity or 
cruelty be the greater ? If you were to see the chains, the 
squalid appearance, the loathsomeness of your countrymen, 
that spectacle would not, I am confident, less affect you 
than if, on the other hand, you beheld your legions pros- 
trate on the plains of Cannae. You may behold the so- 
licitude and the tears of cur kinsmen, as they stand in 
the lobby of your Senate-house, and await your answer. 
When they are in so much suspense and anxiety in behalf 
of us, and those who are absent, what think you must be 
our own feelings, whose lives and liberty are at stake ? By 
Hercules ! should Hannibal himself, contrary to his nature, 
be disposed to be lenient towards us, yet we should not 
consider our lives worth possessing, since we have seemed 
unworthy of being ransomed by you. Formerly, prison- 
ers dismissed by Pyrrhus without ransom returned to 
Rome ; but they returned in company with ambassadors, 
the chief men of the state, who were sent to ransom them. 
Would I return to my country a citizen, and not consider- 
ed worth three hundred denarii ? Every man has his own 
way of thinking, conscript fathers. I know that my life 
and person are at stake. But the danger which threatens 
my reputation affects me most if we should go away re- 
jected and condemned by you ; for men will never suppose 
that you grudged the price of our redemption." 

60. When he had finished his address, the crowd of per- 
sons in the comitium immediately set up a loud lamenta- 
tion, and stretched out their hands to the Senate, implor- 
ing them to restore to them their children, their brothers, 
and their kinsmen. Their fears and affection for their 
kindred had brought the women also with the crowd of 
men in the Forum. Witnesses being excluded, the matter 
began to be discussed in the Senate. There being a dif- 
ference of opinion, and some advising that they should be 
ransomed at the public charge, others that the state should 
be put to no expense, but that they should not be prevent- 



144 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [n. xxu., chap. GO. 



ed redeeming themselves at their own cost ; and that those 
who had not the money at present should receive a loan 
from the public coffer, and security given to the people by 
their sureties and properties ; Titus Manlius Torquatus, 
a man of primitive, and as some considered, over-rigorous 
severity, being asked his opinion, is reported thus to have 
spoken : " Had the deputies confined themselves to mak- 
ing a request, in behalf of those who are in the hands of 
the enemy, that they might be ransomed, I should have 
briefly given my opinion, without inveighing against any 
one. For what else would have been necessary but to ad- 
monish you that you ought to adhere to the custom hand- 
ed down from your ancestors, a precedent indispensable 
to military discipline? But now, since they have almost 
boasted of having surrendered themselves to the enemy, 
and have claimed to be preferred, not only to those who 
were captured by the enemy in the field, but to those also 
who came to Veuusia and Canusium, and even to the con- 
sul Terentius himself, I will not suffer you to remain in 
ignorance of things which were done there. And I could 
wish that what I am about to bring before you were stated 
at Canusium, before the army itself, the best witness of ev- 
ery man's cowardice or valor ; or at least that one person, 
Publius Sempronius, were here, whom had they followed as 
their leader, they would this day have been soldiers in the 
Roman camp, and not prisoners in the power of the ene- 
my. But though the enemy was fatigued with fighting, 
and engaged in rejoicing for their victory, and had, the 
greater part of them, retired into their camp, and they had 
the night at their disposal for making a sally, and, as they 
were seven thousand armed troops, might have forced their 
way through the troops of the enemy, however closely ar- 
rayed, yet they neither of themselves attempted to do this, 
nor were willing to follow another. Throughout nearly 
the whole night Sempronius ceased not to admonish and 
exhort them, while but few of the enemy were about the 
camp, while there was stillness and quiet, while the night 
would conceal their design, that they would follow him ; 
that before day-break they might reach places of security, 
the cities of their allies. If, as Publius Decius, the mili- 
tary tribune in Samnium, said, within the memory of our 



y.r. 536.] 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. 



145 



grandfathers ; if he had said, as Calpurnius Flamma, in the 
first Pnuic -war, when we were youths, said to the three 
hundred volunteers, when he was leading them to seize 
upon an eminence situated in the midst of the enemy : Let 

US DIE, SOLDIERS, AXD BY OUR DEATHS RESCUE THE SUR- 
ROUNDED legioxs from ambuscade — if Publius Sem- 
pronius had said thus, he would neither have considered 
you as Romans nor men, had no one stood forward as his 
companion in so valorous an attempt. He points out to 
you the road that leads not to glory more than to safety ; 
he restores you to your country, your parents, your wives 
and children. Do you want courage to effect your preser- 
vation ? What would you do if you had to die for your 
country? Fifty thousand of your countrymen and allies 
on that very day lay around you slain. If so many ex- 
amples of courage did not move you, nothing ever will. 
If so great a carnage did not make life less dear, none ever 
will. While in freedom and safety, show your affection 
for your country ; nay, rather do so while it is your coun- 
try, and you its citizens. Too late you now endeavor to 
evince your regard for her when degraded, disfranchised 
from the rights of citizens, and become the slaves of the 
Carthaginians. Shall you return by purchase to that de- 
gree which you have forfeited by cowardice and neglect ? 
Yon did not listen to Sempronius, your countryman, when 
he bid you take arms and follow him ; but a little after 
you listened to Hannibal, when he ordered your arms to 
be surrendered and your camp betrayed. But why do I 
charge those men with cowardice, when I might tax them 
with villainy ? They not only refused to follow him who 
gave them good advice, but endeavored to oppose and hold 
him back, had not some men of the greatest bravery, draw- 
ing their swords, removed the cowards. Publius Sempro- 
nius, I say, was obliged to force his way through a band of 
his countrymen before he burst through the enemy's troops. 
Can our country regret such citizens as these, whom if all 
the rest resembled, she would not have one citizen of all 
those who fought at Caunse? Out of seven thousand 
armed men, there were six' hundred who had courage to 
force their way, who returned to their country free and in 
arms ; nor did forty thousand of the enemy successfully 



148 



THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxij., chap. 61. 



oppose them. How safe, tbink you, would a passage have 
been for nearly two legions ? Then you would have had 
this day at Canusium, conscript fathers, twenty thousand 
bold and faithful. But now how can these men be called 
faithful and good citizens (for they do not even call them- 
selves brave), except any man suppose that they showed 
themselves such when they opposed those who were desir- 
ous of forcing their way through the enemy ? or, unless 
any man can suppose that they do not envy those men 
their safety and glory acquired by valor, when they must 
know that their timidity and cowardice were the cause of 
their ignominious . servitude ? Skulking in their tents, 
they preferred to wait tor the light and the enemy togeth- 
er, when they had an opportunity of sallying forth during 
the silence of the night. But though they had not cour- 
age to sally forth from the camp, had they courage to de- 
fend it strenuously ? Having endured a siege for several 
days and nights, did they protect their rampart by their 
arms, and themselves by their rampart? At length, hav- 
ing dared and suffered every extremity, every support of 
life being gone, their strength exhausted with famine, and 
unable to hold their arms, were they subdued by the neces- 
sities of nature rather than by arms ? At sunrise, the en- 
emy approached the rampart : before the second hour, with- 
out hazarding any contest, they delivered up their arms 
and themselves. Here is their military service for you 
during two days. When they ought to have stood firm in 
array and fight on, then they fled back into their camp ; 
when they ought to have fought before their rampart, they 
delivered up their camp : good for nothing, either in the 
field or the camp. I redeem you ? When you ought to 
sally from the camp, you linger and hesitate ; and when 
you ought to stay and protect your camp in arms, you sur- 
render the camp, your arms, and yourselves to the enemy. 
I am of opinion, conscript fathers, that these men ^hould 
no more be ransomed than that those should be surren- 
dered to Hannibal who sallied from the camp through the 
midst of the enemy and, with the most distinguished cour- 
age, restored themselves to their country." 

61. After Manlius had thus spoken, notwithstanding the 
captives were related to many even of the Senators be- 



y.k. 536.] THE HISTORY OF ROME, 147 



sides the practice of the state, which had never shown fa- 
vor to captives, even from the remotest times, the sum of 
money also influenced them ; for they were neither willing 
to drain the treasury, a large sum of money having been al- 
ready issued for buying and arming slaves to serve in the 
war, nor to enrich Hannibal, who, according to report, was 
particularly in want of this very thing. The end reply, 
that the captives would not be ransomed, being delivered, 
and fresh grief being added to the former on account of 
the loss of so many citizens, the people accompanied the 
deputies to the gate with copious tears and lamentations. 
One of them went home, because he had evaded his oath 
by artfully returning to the camp. But when this was 
known and laid before the Senate, they ail resolved that 
he should be apprehended, and conveyed to Hannibal by 
guards furnished by the state. There is. another account 
respecting the prisoners, that ten came first, and that, the 
Senate hesitating whether they should be admitted into 
the city or not, they were admitted, on the understanding 
that they should not have an audience of the Senate. 
That when these staid longer than the expectation of all, 
three more came — Scribonius, Calpnrnius, and Manlius. 
That then at length a tribune of the people, a relation of 
Scribonius, laid before the Senate the redemption of the 
captives, and that they resolved that they should not be 
rausomed. That the three last deputies returned to Han- 
nibal, and the ten former remained, because they had 
evaded their oath, having returned to Hannibal after hav- 
ing set out, under pretense of learning afresh the names of 
the captives. That a violent contest took place in the 
Senate on the question of surrendering them, and that 
those who thought they ought to be surrendered were 
beaten by a few votes, but that they were so branded by 
every kind of stigma and ignominy by the ensuing censors 
that some of them immediately put themselves to death, 
and the rest, for all their life afterwards, not only shunned 
the Forum, but almost the light and publicity. You can 
more easily wonder that authors differ so much than deter- 
mine what is the truth. How much greater this disaster 
was than any preceding, even this is a proof, that such of 
the allies as had stood firm till that day then began to wa- 



143 THE HISTORY OF ROME. [b. xxiii., chap. L 

ver, for no other cause certainly but that they despaired of 
the empire. The people who revolted to the Carthaginians 
were these : the Atellani, Calatini, the Hirpini, some of the 
Apulians, the Samnites, except the Pentrians, all the Brut- 
tians, and the Lucanians. Besides these, the Surrentinians, 
and almost the whole coast possessed by the Greeks, the 
people of Tarentum, Metapontum, Croton, the Locrians, 
and all Cisalpine Gaul. Yet not even these losses and de- 
fections of their allies so shook the firmness of the Ro- 
mans that any mention of peace was made among them, 
either before the arrival of the consul at Rome or after he 
came thither, and renewed the memory of the calamity 
they had suffered. At which very juncture, such was the 
magnanimity of the state, that the consul, as he returned 
after so severe a defeat, of which he himself was the prin- 
cipal cause, was met in crowds of all ranks of citizens, 
and thanks bestowed because he had not despaired of the 
republic, in whose case, had he been a Carthaginian 
commander, no species of punishment would have been 
spared. 



BOOK XXHX 

The Campanlans revolt to Hannibal. Mago is sent to Carthage to an- 
nounce the victory of Cannae. Hanno advises the Carthaginian Sen- 
ate to make peace with the Romans, bat is overborne by the Barcine 
faction. Claudius Marcellus the praetor defeats Hannibal at Nola. 
Hannibal's army is enervated in mind and body by luxurious living at 
Capua. Casilinum is besieged by the Carthaginians, and the inhabit- 
ants reduced to the last extremity of famine. A hundred and ninety- 
seven Senators elected from the equestrian order. Lucius Postumius 
is, with his army, cut oft" by the Gauls. Cneius and Publius Scipio de- 
feat Hasdrubal in Spain, and gain possession of that country. The 
remains of the army, defeated at Cannae, are sent off to Sicily, there 
to remain until the termination of the war. An alliance is formed 
between Philip, king of Macedon, and Hannibal. Sempronius Grac- 
chus defeats the Campanians. Successes of Titus Manlius in Sardinia : 
he takes Hasdrubal the general, Mago, and Hanno prisoneis. Clau- 
dius Marcellns again defeats the army of Hannibal at Nola, and the 
hopes of the Romans are revived as to the results of the war. 

1. After the battle of Cannsej Hannibal, having cap- 
tured and plundered the Roman cajnp, had immediately 
removed from Apulia into Samnium ; invited into the ter- 



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